


A New Archivist

by KurasuYuro



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), The Magnus Archives (Podcast), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Blood, Character Death, Gore, Horror, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trypophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 83,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25850548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KurasuYuro/pseuds/KurasuYuro
Summary: My name is Clay. I work for the Magnus Institute, London, an organisation dedicated to academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal. The head of the Institute, Mr. Fundy, has employed me to replace the previous Head Archivist, one Charles Bachelor, better known as Grian, who has recently passed away.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Zak Ahmed/Darryl Noveschosch
Comments: 42
Kudos: 89





	1. Angler Fish

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Magnus Archives au, if you wish to experience the story in its purest form, please listen to the podcasts first. The actual statements will be taken directly from the Podcast as writing them differently interferes with how the plot will progress and it is simply too much to write considering how long this could possibly be. I assure you it will become more character focused as it goes on and less about the stories. I will only include important episodes to the story. I will rewrite statements that have key characters in them. Please try to be patient and understand why I'm currently copying and pasting the statements that don't impact the plot as hugely. I apologise if it upsets anyone and if anyone has any suggestions I'll happily take them

<-Recording Begins->

Test, test, test

1,2,3

Right

My name is Clay 9@(##. I work for the Magnus Institute, London, an organisation dedicated to academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal. The head of the Institute, Mr. Fundy, has employed me to replace the previous Head Archivist, one Charles Batchelor, better known as Grian, who has recently passed away.

I have been working as a researcher at the Institute for four years now and am familiar with most of our contracts and projects. Most reach dead ends, predictably enough, as incidents of the supernatural, such as they are - and I always emphasise there are very few genuine cases - tend to resist easy conclusions. When an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to the Archives.

Now, the Institute was founded in 1818, which means that the Archive contains almost 200 years of case files at this point. Combine that with the fact that most of the Institute prefers an academically bright employee and you have the recipe for an incredibly organised library and an absolute mess of an archive. This isn’t necessarily a problem - filing and indexing systems are a real wonder, and all it would need is a half-decent archivist to keep it in order. Charles Batchelor was apparently not that archivist.

From my desk I can see thousands of files scattered around the room with 'helpful' labels, 86-91 G/H. Most are handwritten or done with a type writer, with no accompanying digital copies. If I were to bargain I'd say the computer I brought in today was the most advanced piece of technology every brought into this room. More important to my task is that the files have little in the way of research, only the statements themselves.

I figure it will take me a very long time to clean up this mess. I have however secured three researches to help me in my position. I do plan to digitally transfer the files however some will have to be recorded by tape as my attempts to put them into my laptop was met with.. Noticeable audio distortions.

Alongside with Darryl, Zak and George, who will be investigating further into the statements once recorded, I will attempt to put the files into reasonable order. I can however not promise a date to all these statements.

Enough with excuses though, this will be the start of something I suppose.

Statement of Nathan Watts, regarding an encounter on Old Fishmarket Close, Edinburgh. Original statement given the 22nd of April, 2012. Audio recording by Clay 9@(£#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins. 

This all happened a couple of years ago, so I apologise if some of the details are a bit off. I mean, I feel like I remember it clearly but sometimes things are so weird that you start to doubt yourself. Still, I suppose weird is kind of what you guys do, right?

So I’m studying at the University of Edinburgh. Biochemistry, specifically, and I was in my second year at the time this happened. I wasn’t in any sort of university accommodation at this point, and was renting a student flat down in Southside with a few other second years.

To be honest, I didn’t hang out with them much. I took a gap year before matriculating, and my birthday’s in the wrong part of September, so I was nearly two years older than most of my peers when I started my course. I got on with them fine, you understand, but I tended to end up hanging out with some of the older students.

That’s why I was at the party in the first place. Michael MacAulay, a good friend of mine, had just been accepted to do a Master’s degree in Earth Sciences so we decided a celebration was in order. Well, maybe ‘party’ isn’t quite the right word, we just kind of invaded the Albanach down on the Royal Mile, and drank long enough and loud enough that eventually we had the back area to ourselves. Now, I don’t know how well you know the drinking holes of Edinburgh, but the Albanach has a wide selection of some excellent single malts, and I may have slightly overindulged. I have vague memories of Mike suggesting I slow down, to which I responded by roundly swearing at him for failing to properly celebrate his own good news. Or words to that effect.

Long story short, I was violently ill around midnight, and made the decision to walk the route home. It wasn’t far to my flat, maybe half an hour if I’d been sober, and the night was cool enough that I remember having a hope the chill would perk me up some. I headed for the Cowgate and the quickest way to get there from the Royal Mile is down Old Fishmarket Close. Now, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that there are some steep hills in Edinburgh but Old Fishmarket Close is exceptional, even by those standards. At times it must reach a thirty or forty degree angle, which is hard enough to navigate when you don’t have that much scotch inside you. As I have mentioned, I had quite a lot, so it probably wasn’t that surprising when I took a rather nasty tumble about halfway down the street.

In retrospect, the fall wasn’t that bad compared to what it could have been, but at the time, it really shook me up, and left me with some nasty bruises. I picked myself up as best I could, checked I hadn’t seriously injured myself, no broken bones or anything, and decided to roll a cigarette to calm myself. That was when I heard it.

“Can I have a cigarette?”

I was startled out of my thoughts by the words as I thought I had been alone. Quickly trying to compose myself and looking around, I noticed a small alleyway on the opposite side of the street. It was very narrow and completely unlit with a short staircase leading up. I could see a light fixture a little way up the wall at its entrance, but it either wasn’t working or wasn’t turned on, meaning that beyond a few steps the alley was shrouded in total darkness. Stood there, a couple of stairs from the street, was a figure. It was hard to tell much about them as they were mostly in the shadows, though if I’d had to guess I would have said the voice sounded male. They seemed to sway, ever so slightly, as I watched, and I assumed that they, like me, were probably a little bit drunk.

I lit my own cigarette and held out my tobacco towards them, though I didn’t approach, and asked if they were ok with a roll-up. The figure didn’t move except to continue that gentle swaying. Writing it down now, it seems so obvious that something was wrong. If I hadn’t been so drunk, maybe I’d have noticed quicker, but even when the stranger asked the question again, “Can I have a cigarette?” utterly without intonation, still I didn’t understand why I was so uneasy.

I stared at the stranger and as my eyes began to adjust I could make out more details. I could see that their face appeared blank, expressionless, and their skin seemed damp and slightly sunken, like they had a bad fever. The swaying was more pronounced now, seeming to move from the waist, side to side, back and forth. By this point, I had finished rolling a second cigarette, and gingerly held it out towards them, but I didn’t get any closer. I had decided that if this weirdo wanted a cigarette, they were going to need to come out of the creepy alleyway. They didn’t come closer, didn’t make any movement at all except for that damn swaying. For some reason the thought of an anglerfish popped into my head, the single point of light dangled into the darkness, hiding the thing that lures you in.

“Can I have a cigarette?” It spoke again in the same flat voice and I realised exactly what was wrong. Its mouth was closed, had been the whole time. Whatever was repeating that question, it wasn’t the figure in the alleyway. I looked at their feet and saw that they weren’t quite touching the ground. The stranger’s form was being lifted, ever so slightly, and moved gently from side to side.

I dropped the cigarette and grabbed for my phone, trying to turn on the torch. I don’t know why I didn’t run or what I hoped to see in that alley, but I wanted to get a better look. As soon as I took out my phone, the figure disappeared. It sort of folded at the waist and vanished back into the darkness, as if a string had gone taut and pulled it back. I turned on the torch and stared into the alley, but I saw nothing. Just silence and darkness. I staggered back up to the Royal Mile, which still had lights and people, and found a taxi to take me home.

I slept late the next day. I’d made sure I didn’t have any lectures or classes, as I had intended to be sleeping off a heavy night of drinking, which I guess I was, although it was that bizarre encounter that kept playing in my mind. And so, after making my way through two litres of water, some painkillers and a very greasy breakfast, I felt human enough to leave my flat and go to investigate the place in daylight. The result was unenlightening. There were no marks, no bloodstains, nothing to indicate that the swaying figure had ever been there at all. The only thing I did find was an unsmoked Marlboro Red cigarette, lying just below the burned out light fixture.

Beyond that, I didn’t really know what to do. I did as much research as I could on the place, but couldn’t find anyone who’d had any experience similar to mine, and there didn’t seem to be any folklore or urban legends I could find out about Old Fishmarket Close. The few friends I told about what happened just assumed I’d been accosted by some stranger and the alcohol had made it seem much weirder than it was. I tried to explain that I’ve never had hallucinations while drunk, and that there was no way this guy had just been a normal person, but they always gave me one of those looks, halfway between pity and concern, and I’d shut up.

I never did find out anything else about it, but a few days later I saw some missing person appeals go up around campus. Another student had disappeared. John Fellowes, his name was, though I didn’t really know the guy and couldn’t tell you much about him, except for two things that struck me as very important: he had been at that same party and, as far as I remembered, had still been there when I left. The other was just that, well, on the photo they’d used for his missing persons appeal, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a pack of Marlboro Red cigarettes poking out of his pocket.

I haven’t quit smoking, but I do find that I take a lot more taxis now if I find myself out too late.

Statement Ends.

There was no follow up investigation and the investigation we've been carrying out over the last couple of days provided no evidence to corroborate with Mr Watts experience and I was tempted to file this in the "Discredited" section of the archives, a new section I'm making, in which I'm sure the majority of statements will go. 

However, Darr-Bad did some digging and really pulled through. Police reports from 2005 to 2010, when Mr Watts encounter supposedly took place report the dissapearence of 6 individuals around the area. Jessica McEwen in November 2005, Sarah Baldwin in August 2006, Daniel Rawlings in December of the same year, then Ashley Dobson and Megan Shaw in May and June of 2008. Then finally, as Mr. Watts mentioned, John Fellowes in March 2010. All 6 dissapearence remain unsolved and Baldwin and Shaw were definitely smokers but this may be unrelated. 

Bad did find one thing though, specifically in the case of Ashley Dobson. It was a copy of the last picture taken by her phone and sent to her sister Siobhan. The caption was “check out this drunk creeper lol”, but the picture is of a darkened, apparently empty, alleyway, with stairs leading up into it. This seems to be the same alleyway that Mr Watts described, but there doesn't seem to be anyone in the picture at all. 

Bad took the task of running it through some editing programs and increasing the contrast, it appears to show the outline of a thin male hand, roughly waist height. I find it oddly hard to shake off the impression that it’s beckoning, then again, it's all nonsense in my opinion. 

End recording.


	2. Across The Street

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have drafted around 10 chapters, I believe after chapter 7 the statements should start being twisted to the actual characters that are important to the plot. You don't need any former knowledge of the Magnus Archives to read this and understand it, I will be getting out all 10 of the drafted statements today.

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Amy Patel, regarding the alleged dissapearence of her aquantance Graham Folger. Original statement given July 1st 2007. Audio recording by Clay @8£(£, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

I first met Graham two years ago, more or less. It’s hard to say exactly when we first met or even started talking, as we were taking a class together at the time. I’m sure there was plenty of discussion or interaction before we learned each other’s names, but I started my course in September of 2005, so yeah, about two years. I had decided to take a Criminology course at Birkbeck University as a way of getting out of the rut with my office job - I’m an Associate Compliance Analyst at Deloitte, and if you think that sounds boring, well… yeah. It is. I knew a night course in Criminology wasn’t going to go anywhere, of course, even if I’d finished it. I just had to do something to find a bit of interest in my life, and it was either that or become an alcoholic, so…

Sorry, I’m going off topic. I initially found Graham a bit off-putting, to be honest. He was a chain smoker and wore far too much deodorant to try and cover the smell. He was a bit older than me, maybe ten years or so. I never asked his age, I mean, we weren’t that close, but he was starting to grey at the edges of his hair, and you could see that the tiredness on his face wasn’t just from missing a single night’s sleep. That’s not to say he was bad looking - he had a round, open sort of face and quite deep blue eyes, but very much not my type. He was well-spoken in group work, at least when he did speak, and I think it came up once that he’d been to Oxford, though I don’t know what college.

I’d noticed earlier that during lectures he always seemed to be scribbling furiously in a notebook even when the lecturer wasn’t speaking. At first, I just thought he was thorough, but I swear I watched him fill a whole A5 notebook in one lecture. I remember it was a talk on youth and the justice system where the speaker was so slow that it wouldn’t have filled that book even if Graham had been writing down literally every word. Not to mention I asked to borrow his notes once for an essay, and he gave me this weird look and said he didn’t take any notes.

So yeah, point is, I wouldn’t have called him a friend, but we got on alright. It was about four months into my course that I first encountered Graham outside of the university. I was riding the night bus home, having gone for a couple of drinks and missed the regular service. I live in Clapham, so there’s a pretty regular night bus service headed there. Of course, regular also means drunken angry vomiters, so yeah, I generally try to be unobtrusive, sitting in a seat at the back of the top floor.

It was there that I saw Graham. He was sat right at the front, staring out of the window. People-watching is one of my guilty pleasures, so I decided not to say hello, at least not right away. I wasn’t disappointed, either - he was stranger alone than he had ever been during class.

It was the middle of winter at this point, so the windows were solid with condensation, but he almost obsessively wiped it away from the one in front of him the moment it started to obscure his view. He seemed to be intently scanning the street for something, except that at times he would crane his neck to stare at the roofs of the buildings passing by. He seemed nervous, as well, and was breathing way faster than normal, which fogged up his window even more. It was slightly alarming to watch, to be honest, and I finally made up my mind to tell him I was there.

He jumped a bit when I greeted him, and I asked him if he was alright. He told me he didn’t usually stay out so late and found nighttime public transport unsettling. I sat next to him, and he seemed to get much more relaxed, so I didn’t push the issue.

We talked for awhile about nothing in particular, until the bus started to approach my stop. As I rose, I noticed that Graham had stood up at the exact same time as I had, and I realised with some discomfort that we must live at the same stop. I liked the guy fine, don’t get me wrong, but I still didn’t really feel ok with him knowing where I lived. But yeah, it was obvious that I’d gotten up to get off the bus, so I couldn’t really ride on to the next stop, and it wasn’t even that I felt unsafe with Graham, I’m just a private person.

I decided to just walk back with him as far as necessary and make sure he didn’t see what building I went into. Maybe we weren’t even walking in the same direction. Yeah, we were walking in exactly the same direction. We even seemed to be heading to the same street.

It was at that point I felt a hand grab my shoulder and throw me into the road. I don’t know how else to describe it, one moment I was walking along, the next I was flying towards the ground. It can’t have been Graham - he was in front of me at the time, and I would have sworn there was nobody else on the street. There weren’t any cars coming, but I hit my head hard. I think I must have been unconscious for a few seconds, because the next thing I remember is a panicky Graham on the phone to an ambulance. I tried to tell him I was alright, but didn’t really manage to get the words out, which, yeah, probably meant I wasn’t alright.

The ambulance arrived in pretty good time, considering it was London on a Friday night, and the paramedics gave me a look over. I was told that the injury itself wasn’t serious - apparently head wounds always bleed that much and it’s nothing to panic about - but that I did have quite a nasty concussion and shouldn’t be left alone for the next few hours.

Even though we were within sight of my door, I had for some reason settled upon the idea of Graham never knowing where I lived. In retrospect this was likely the concussion talking, but the upshot was I agreed to go back to Graham’s flat to recover. He was quite awkward about the whole thing, and took great pains to assure me that there was nothing untoward about the situation; apparently he was a gay, which I’ll admit did actually reassure me a bit. Still, it was clear this wasn’t how either of us had hoped to be ending our nights.

As it turned out, Graham’s flat was directly across the street from mine, just a couple of floors lower. I wondered if I could see my window from his, and I remember I had the odd thought that, if I had to look out, I’d need to be careful of his window box, as I could see the hooks attaching it to the frame. I asked him what he grew, and he gave me a look, as though my concussion had stopped me making sense again. I mean, maybe it had, because when I looked back at the window the hooks were gone, and there was no sign of any window box. At the time I put it down to my head wound, and even now I’m not sure.

The flat itself was a simple affair, quite big by London standards. It had only a few pieces of furniture and a lot of bookshelves, each covered with rows and rows of identical notebooks, with no apparent marking system or indication of contents. I started to ask about them, but my head throbbed and I didn’t feel up to any answer that might have been forthcoming.

Graham led me to the sofa and disappeared to fetch me an icepack and a mug of sugary tea. I graciously accepted both, though I wasn’t in much of a mood to talk. Graham clearly felt awkward enough with the silence to do the talking for both of us, and I learned more about him over the next hour than I’d ever had a desire to know. Apparently his parents had died in a car accident a few years previously and had left a great deal of money and ownership of this flat. He didn’t need to work anymore and so had found himself somewhat adrift, taking night college courses to pass the time and broaden his mind - his words, not mine. He said he was trying to figure out what to actually do with his life.

He talked on like this for a while but I stopped listening about that point, as I’d become enraptured by the table on which he’d placed my tea. It was an ornate wooden thing, with a snaking pattern of lines weaving their way around towards the centre. The pattern was hypnotic and shifted as I watched it, like an optical illusion. I found my eyes following the lines towards the middle of the table, where there was nothing but a small square hole. Graham noticed me staring, and told me that interesting antique furniture was one of his few true passions. Apparently he’d found the table in a second-hand shop during his student days and fallen in love with it. It had been in pretty bad shape but he’d spent a long time and a lot of money restoring it, though he’d never been able to figure out what was supposed to go in the centre. He assumed it was a separate piece and couldn’t track it down.

And yeah, like most of his conversation, I’d have found it dull even if I wasn’t concussed. But by this time, I was beginning to feel well enough to leave, and started to make my excuses to Graham. He expressed his concern, said it hadn’t been as long enough, as the medics suggested, but if I had to… Well, you get the picture. In the end I did leave, as I kept getting lost in the lines of the table, and the pipes outside of the window made such a weird noise that I didn’t think staying was actually going to help me recover.

I went straight home, making sure Graham couldn’t see me from his window, and spent a few hours watching TV until I recovered enough to go to sleep. By the time I woke up the next morning I was feeling more or less ok, though I kept a plaster on the cut on my forehead, and tried not to think too much about the previous night.

One evening a few days later, though, I found myself staring out of my window, the one that faced the street, and I remembered how close Graham lived. I looked to see if I could figure out which window was his and, yeah, sure enough, there it was. It was actually a remarkably clear view of his flat, and I could see him sat on the sofa, reading one of the notebooks from his bookshelves. I realised that if I could see him so clearly, he could likely see me just as well if he chose to look up, and, with some remnant of my apprehension from that Friday, I decided to turn off the light in my flat, so he wouldn’t see me if he looked up. And then, I went back to watching him.

Yeah, I know that sounds creepy. It really wasn’t meant to be. I said earlier that I really enjoy people-watching and, regardless of how boring he may have been to speak to, Graham was weirdly compelling to watch. So that’s just what I did. And not just that night, either. Yeah, there’s no non-sinister way to say that watching Graham became my hobby. It was strange, I’ll admit it. But I just couldn’t stop myself. I reasoned I wasn’t watching him with any purpose or malice in mind. It was purely out of a detached interest in his life. And in my defence, I would have stopped a lot sooner if it hadn’t been for the bizarre things he would do. He would constantly reorder his journals, without any apparent system of organisation, most of the time without even opening them. Sometimes he would grab an apparently random notebook from the shelves and start scribbling in it, even though I could see that the page was already covered in writing.

Once, and I swear this is true, I saw him take one of his notebooks and start to tear out the pages one at a time. And then, slowly and deliberately, he ate them. It must have taken him three hours to get through the whole book, but he didn’t stop or pause, he just kept going.

Even when he wasn’t doing anything with the notebooks, there was an odd energy to him. From what I could see he was constantly on edge, and jumped every time any loud noise passed on the street below. A police siren, a breaking bottle, hell, I even saw him freak out over an ice-cream truck once. Each time he’d leap to his feet, run to the window and start looking out; wildly craning his neck from side to side. Sometimes he’d look up, but I’d learned his patterns well enough to avoid being spotted. Then, all at once, he’d decide that there was no problem and go back to whatever he was doing before.

And by “whatever he was doing before”, yeah, I mean nothing. He apparently didn’t have a television or a computer - the only books he seemed to own were his own notebooks, and I only ever saw him eat takeaway food. I don’t know how many times I watched him eat the same pizza - pepperoni with jalapeño peppers and anchovies. Yeah, I know. But the rest of the time he just sat there, smoking; sometimes looking into space, sometimes staring at that wooden table of his. And yeah, I remembered the pattern was kind of hypnotic and I spent more than a couple of minutes staring at it myself when I was there, but he did almost nothing else.

Who knows, perhaps he had a rich and fulfilling life outside of the flat. He certainly left it regularly enough, and yeah, I wasn’t so far gone as to actually follow him. In fact, I always waited a good long while before leaving my own building to make sure I didn’t bump into him. I still didn’t want him to know where I lived, although now for very different reasons. In the end, though, it was a hobby, not an obsession, and often days would pass when I wouldn’t see Graham at all. Maybe there was stuff I missed that would have explained his behaviour. I just wish I’d missed what happened on April 7th. Then maybe I’d have just thought he’d moved on or… I don’t know. I just wish I hadn’t seen it.

Work had been intense for a couple of months, with so many late nights I’d had to drop out of my course. It was just as well, really, as I hadn’t actually spoken to Graham since the night I suffered my head injury. I think he still felt awkward about it, and I’d seen him do so many weird things alone in his flat that I think I’d have struggled to have a normal conversation with him. Anyway, this week I’d barely had time to eat, let alone do much in the way of Graham-watching, so when I got home at about half ten at night, my first thought was just to fall into bed. But it was Friday, and I’d drunk a huge amount of coffee to keep going at work, so yeah, I was wired and looking forward to a long lie-in the next day. So when I saw Graham’s light was still on, I decided to spend a relaxing few minutes checking in on him.

His light may have been on, but I couldn’t see him, and I wondered if perhaps he’d gone to bed and simply forgotten to turn it off. More likely he was just in the bathroom, so I decided to wait a while longer. As I stared at that window, I realised there was something… I don’t know, off about it. It looked different somehow, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Then I noticed it. At first, I’d just taken it to be a water pipe running down the side of the building, attached just below Graham’s open window. The light from the streetlamps didn’t reach up to his fourth floor flat, and the window ledge cast a shadow that stopped the light from the room illuminating it, but it was long, straight, dark, and from what I could see it just looked like a pipe, except I’d been watching that window for months now, and would have sworn that there had never been a pipe there before.

And as I stared at it, it moved. It started to bend, slowly, and I realised I was looking at an arm, a long, thin arm. As it bent the joint close to where the arm ended, I think I saw another joint further down, also moving, and bending what I can only assume were elbows; it hooked the end of the limb over through the window. When I say moved, that’s not quite right. It shifted. Like when you stare at one of those old magic eye paintings and you change from seeing one picture into seeing another.

I never saw anything I could actually call a hand, but still it pulled itself through his window. It took less than a second, and I didn’t get a good look at what it was, I just saw these… arms, legs? At least four of them, but there might have been more, and they kind of folded themselves through the window in a flash of mottled grey. I think that was the colour - it was mostly a silhouette, and if there was a body or head, it shifted inside faster than I could see it. The moment it was inside, the light in Graham’s flat went out, and the window slammed down behind it.

So yeah, I just kind of stood there for a long time, trying to process what I’d just seen. I could make out some vague movements from inside Graham’s flat, but couldn’t see anything clearly. I finally decided I had to phone the police, though I didn’t have any idea what to tell them. In the end I simply said I’d seen someone suspicious climbing in through a fourth floor window at his address and hung up before they could ask me who was calling. Then I waited and watched the darkened flat opposite. I couldn’t look away - I was convinced that if I stopped staring that… whatever the hell it was would fold itself back out, reach over and step into my home. Nothing came out.

About ten minutes later I saw a police car driving up the street. No sirens, no flashing lights, but they were here, and right away I started to feel better. Looking up, though, I saw the light had come on in Graham’s flat. There was no sign of the thing I’d seen climb in, but as the police pressed the buzzer outside his building, I saw someone walking towards the door to let them in. It wasn’t Graham.

I can’t stress enough how much this was not Graham. He looked completely different. He was maybe a few inches shorter and had a long, square face topped with curly blond hair, where Graham’s had been dark and cut short. He was dressed in Graham’s clothes, though; I recognised the shirt from my months of watching, but he was not Graham. I watched as Not-Graham walked to the door and let the two police officers in. They talked for a while, and Not-Graham looked concerned and together they started to search the flat. I watched, waiting for the thing to emerge, or for them to find the real Graham, but they didn’t.

At one point I saw one of the police pick up a dark red shape that I recognised as a passport. My heart beat faster as I saw her open it and look at Not-Graham, clearly comparing, waiting for the moment when she detected the impostor. But instead she just laughed, shook Not-Graham’s hand, and they left.

I watched the police car drive away, feeling a sense of helplessness, and when I looked up, he was standing at Graham’s window, looking back at me. I stood there frozen as his wide, staring eyes met mine and a cold, toothy smile spread across his face. Then in one swift motion he drew the curtains, and was gone.

I didn’t sleep that night, and I never saw Graham again. I saw this new person, though, all the time. For the next week I’d see him taking out large, heavy-looking rubbish bags several times a day. It took me a while to realise he was disposing of Graham’s old notebooks, but soon enough the flat was empty of them. I think he did other redecorating, but I never got a good look, as the only time he had his curtains open was when he was staring intently at my flat, which he now did every night. I tried to find evidence of the old Graham, but anything I could find online with a picture - it was always a picture of this new person. I even asked some of my old classmates, but none of them seemed to remember him at all.

Eventually I moved. I really liked my old place in Clapham, but yeah, it just got too much. The last straw was when I was leaving for work one morning, and didn’t realise until too late that Not-Graham had left his building at the same time. He greeted me by name, and his voice was nothing like it should have been. I started to make my excuses and hurry away, but he just stared at me, and smiled.

“Isn’t it funny, Amy, how you can live so near and never notice. I’ll need to return the visit someday.”

I moved out a week later, and I never saw him again.

Statement ends

I'd dismiss this as hallucinations from long term head trauma but Zak came through with this one and managed to get hold of Miss Patels medical records. I have no clue how he got them but he better not be using institute funds to woo filing clerks again.

The records just don't support the idea she was suffering those sorts of problems. Her job doesn't seem like one she can do while hallucinating. She's refused a request for a follow up interview, my guess would be she's attempting to distance herself from the situation.

Graham Folger did exist and went to the same college as Miss Patel, however, all photos of him do infact match the descriptions of this 'Not-Graham' except for two Polaroids which show an entirely different figure who doesn't match the later photos at all. Miss Patel seemed to be given her statement as a form of personal closure and wasn't interested with any updates on the situation, she wasn't even interested when Bad told her we managed to find one of Graham's journals. It probably isn't much though, just the words, "Keep watching." over and over and over again.

End recording.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clays voice will not have speech marks until the recordings turn away from statements later on. Other characters that appear in the recording will have speech marks as a way to differentiate Clay from another character. Please keep that in mind for live statements.


	3. Page Turner

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Dominic Swain, regarding a book briefly in his possession in the winter of 2012. Original statement given June 28th 2013. Audio recording by Clay @8(##, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins. 

I work as a theatre technician in various venues around the West End; I mainly deal with lights, but a lot of the smaller venues can’t afford large crews for their productions so you end up doing a little bit of everything. I guess that’s not directly relevant to my experience but I just want you to know that I’m not some crazy person wandering in off the street. I work, I do practical things with my hands and I am not prone to crazed flights of fancy.

That day, I was going to see a matinee performance of The Trojan Women at The Gate Theatre, up in Notting Hill. A friend of mine, Katherine Mendes, was in it and had been trying to get me to come to see it for a while. We’d worked together on a production of The Seagull a couple of years before and had had a bit of a thing going back then. At this point I had just become single, so was keen to meet up and see if any of the old spark remained. I ended up going along on the afternoon of Saturday the 10th of November - I remember the date exactly, as there had been a lot of back-and-forth about it, since we were both involved in separate shows at the time, making evenings difficult.

So, on Saturday afternoon I found myself in Notting Hill Gate, killing an hour or two before the show was due to start. Now, Notting Hill is not somewhere I go often, as it tends towards the pricey, even for London, and I’m not sure how much you know about theatre techs, but we’re not generally an overpaid profession. Still, I had some vague memories of their being an Oxfam charity shop somewhere nearby, as I’d previously bought quite a nice old military tunic there which remains one of my favourite jackets. I found it without any problems, and spent ten minutes or so looking over the clothes and knickknacks, but was a bit disappointed. It was smaller than I remembered and just seemed to contain the same tedious curios as every other charity shop. I still had some time to kill, though, so I decided to have a look through their books, something I rarely bother doing usually.

I found the book on the Science Fiction and Fantasy shelf. At first I assumed it was some sort of faux-leather special edition and I was sure whoever put it out for sale must have done the same, because the price on it was only four pounds. There was something about it that made me take another look, though, and picking it up I felt the binding and realised it might well have been bound in real leather, probably calf, given how soft it was. I’m not an expert on books, by any means, but it seemed old, and I thought it might have been hand-bound as the pages were slightly uneven.

There was no dust wrapper on it and the front had no title, but embossed on the spine in faded gold letters were the words Ex Altiora. I did some Latin in school when I was a child, but I haven’t had much cause to use it since, so you’ll have to forgive me if my translations don’t make much sense, but I believe it meant “From Higher” or “Out of the Heights”.

I was astounded, to say the least - the book was clearly worth far more than it was being sold for. If the shop clerk who put it out had been paying any attention it would have been in the glass case where they kept those things people donated that were actually valuable. I had a flick through but it seemed to be entirely written in Latin, so I didn’t have much luck discerning what it was about. The only English seemed to be a bookplate at the front that read “From the library of Jurgen Leitner,” although no author was listed.

There were also several black and white illustrations - woodcuts I think - each showing a mountain or a cliff or in one picture what appeared to be an empty night sky. I felt an odd sensation when I looked at that image as though, simple as it was, I was about to fall into it, and my stomach gave an odd jolt, almost causing me to drop the book in the middle of Oxfam.

I made up my mind to buy it. Even if I never figured out how to read the thing, it was clearly worth a lot more than they were selling it for. I felt like a bit of an arse for not letting them know how valuable it was, almost like I was stealing money from the charity, but in the end I realised that it wasn’t my job to set the prices in this shop and besides, this book absolutely fascinated me. The woman working the till didn’t even raise an eyebrow when I brought it over and paid my four pounds. I headed out, hoping to find a café where I could sit and have another look through, but it was then that I noticed the time. I had somehow managed to spend an hour in that shop, and now I was very nearly late for Katherine’s play. I made it in time, luckily, though I had to run a bit.

The show was fine. I’ve never been a particular fan of Greek plays, and this interpretation was not the one to win me round to them. Katherine was excellent, of course, but the rest of the show was quite frankly a bit pedestrian. Still, I’m not a theatre critic, and I wasn’t exactly paying it my full attention, as I was convinced there was a problem with the stage lights. Throughout the show I kept getting the faintest smell of ozone and was worried. The only other time I’d smelled that in the theatre was when one of my stage hands had accidentally ordered the wrong sort of light and we’d ended up installing a projector with a xenon-mercury lamp - the sort used to sterilise medical equipment with UV. I spotted the issue before anything happened, but I still remember that intense ozone smell. Still, no-one else seemed to notice it and I couldn’t see anything in their light set-up that would have caused the odour, so I tried my best to ignore it.

After the performance was finished, Katherine and I grabbed a quick dinner before heading to our respective evening shows. I was disappointed to discover that whatever attraction there had been between us seemed to have vanished completely, and while we spent a pleasant enough couple of hours together it was obvious that neither of us wanted to take it any further. I did show her the book, though. She knew even less Latin than I did, but was impressed. She said it looked valuable and that I should take it somewhere to be appraised, although she didn’t look through it in any detail, as the pictures triggered her vertigo for some reason.

Nothing of note occurred after I left. I did my show, a production of Much Ado About Nothing down at the Courtyard Theatre, with no problems. I returned home late, having gone for a drink with the stage manager and a couple of the actors, and felt far too awake to just go to bed, so I poured myself a small gin and tonic and decided to look through this book in more detail. Oddly enough, I somehow hadn’t learned any more Latin since I bought it twelve hours before, so reading it was still out of the question, but I went through and had a closer look at those woodcuts. There were about a dozen that I found, mostly mountains and cliffs but one appeared to be a tower, looming over the surrounding countryside at an odd angle, with tiny birds just visible circling the summit.

And then there was that picture of an empty sky. I’ve never had any fear of heights, but staring at that picture I felt… I don’t know, really. I just couldn’t look at it for too long. It seemed to open forever, nothing to do but fall into it. It was even stranger as there wasn’t much to the picture itself except for black ink and a few stylised stars, but something in the proportions just had that effect on me.

I decided that maybe Katherine had been right, and it might be valuable as an antique, so I did some research to try and find out more about it. Latin fell out of favour as a language for academic texts in the 18th Century and I really doubted the thing was that old. Since then it was only really used for religious texts but the book certainly didn’t look like it was full of prayers. Searching Ex Altiora online didn’t do much good - the phrase was used in a few old prayers, there was a company called Altiora and something in Italian about football, but nothing that looked even remotely like it related to my book.

Searching for Jurgen Leitner wasn’t much better. It brought up an entry for an Austrian musician and a few Facebook pages, although they all seemed to have umlauts in their names, unlike the one in the book, and none of them looked like the sorts to have a library full of strange Latin texts. The only thing I found that looked even remotely relevant was a listing on eBay from 2007. The auction was titled “Key of Solomon 1863 owned by MacGregor Mathers and Jurgen Leitner” and had been won for just over £1200 by a deactivated user - grbookworm1818. There was no picture or description - just the title and the winning bid. I decided to call it a night and go to bed. I think I had a nightmare, but I don’t remember the details.

I slept in very late the next day and by the time I awoke there wasn’t much daylight left, but I spent the hours until my show contacting book dealers that I’d looked up online. All of them put the book’s age between 100 and 150 years, and said it looked like it had been custom-bound. Most offered to buy it off me for a few hundred pounds, but at this point I was more interested in information about it. Unfortunately, none of them had heard of it before, or seemed at all familiar with its contents.

The last seller I went to did recognise the name Jurgen Leitner, though. She told me Leitner had been a big name in the literary scene during the 1990s; some rich Scandinavian recluse paying absurd amounts of money for whatever books took his fancy. It was said he’d often have books custom-bound after providing a manuscript, or even commission authors to produce works to his brief - although she didn’t actually know any writers who had worked with Leitner. He dropped from public view sometime around ‘95, but she recalled he used to have extensive dealings with Pinhole Books down in Morden, and gave me the details for Mary Keay, who owned it.

I went and I did my show after that, the last night of the run, in point of fact, but though I didn’t miss a single lighting cue, all through it I just couldn’t take my mind off the book. I felt as though there was something I was missing, just beyond my grasp. And all throughout I could detect that same faint smell of ozone. Or was it ozone? There was something else there, something I knew but could not remember. Every time I felt I was close, I was overcome with a dizziness and nausea that threatened to topple me over.

I skipped the cast party afterwards, instead going for a long walk to “clear my head” in the cold November air. I don’t know how long I walked for. It must have been hours, but it felt right, like it was all I could do. Walking felt as natural as falling. It was only when a man shouted at me for almost walking into him that I stopped and took stock of my surroundings. I had no idea where I was. I took out my phone to find the nearest station and saw that I was only a street away from Morden.

I felt dizzy all of a sudden, and when I looked at the building I was stood in front of, I was not in the least bit surprised to see a brass plaque reading “Pinhole Books - By Appointment Only” next to an unmarked door of dark-stained wood. I rang the doorbell and waited.

The woman who opened the door wasn’t at all what I was expecting. She was very old and painfully thin, but her head was completely clean shaven, and every square inch of skin I could see was tattooed over with closely-written words in a script I didn’t recognise. She stood at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and from the top I could hear the sound of death metal blaring out of some powerful speakers. I wondered for a moment if she got complaints from the neighbours, playing it so loudly at two o’clock in the morning, and realised with a start that it was actually two o’clock in the morning. I apologised for disturbing her so late and asked if she was Mary Keay. She just snorted and asked in a decidedly unfriendly manner if I had an appointment.

I reached into my bag and pulled out Ex Altiora, opening it to show Leitner’s name on the bookplate. At this her eyes seemed to light up, and she turned around to walk up the stairs. She didn’t shut the door behind her, so I took this as an invitation and followed her up.

We entered a cramped set of rooms, with books piled high in every conceivable corner, almost to a point where I had to be careful following her through the labyrinth, so as not to take a wrong turn. She was talking, I realised, and didn’t seem to care if I heard her over the music or not. She said it had been a long time since she’d found a Leitner, although “her Gerard” kept an eye out. She gave no elaboration as to who her Gerard might have been. This strange old woman didn’t seem interested in actually reading or looking at my book in depth, but asked instead if I wanted to see hers. I just nodded. I was out of my depth here, but I had no idea what in. I just knew that I hadn’t smelled ozone since I arrived.

I followed Mary Keay into a dingy study. It was small to begin with, but every wall was completely covered with packed bookshelves, crowding even further into the space. Immediately my host began to scan them intently, muttering to herself about where “he” would have put it. I stood there awkwardly, not wanting to stare at the old woman, but also hesitant to do anything else.

Aside from the bookshelves, there was little in the room other than a worn desk with a very old-looking chair behind it. The desk was covered with papers, as well as fishing wire and a safety razor. I think it says something about my state of mind at this point that I didn’t even give those items a second thought at the time.

Instead, my attention was fixed on a picture attached to the one small area of wall not covered by bookshelves. It was a painting of an eye. Very detailed, and at first I almost would have said almost photorealistic, but the more I looked at it, the more I saw the patterns and symmetries that formed into a single image, until I was so focused on them that I started to have difficulty seeing the eye itself.

Written below it were three lines, in fine green calligraphy: “Grant us the sight that we may not know. Grant us the scent that we may not catch. Grant us the sound that we may not call.”

At this point Mary Keay returned with two cups of tea. I hadn’t even noticed her leave nor had I requested the cup of black tea she pressed into my hand. She asked if I liked the painting and told me that her Gerard had done it. Said he was a very talented artist. I mumbled something approving, I don’t remember exactly what, and looked at the cup of tea in my hand. She hadn’t offered me any milk, and was now busily searching the shelves again, her own cup forgotten on the desk. I tried to drink the stuff out of politeness, but it tasted foul, like dust and smoke. I think it might have once been lapsang souchong, but if so it must have been years old.

Finally, Mary seemed to find the book she was looking for and took it from the shelf. She handed me a book that, at first glance, appeared to be almost identical to my copy of Ex Altiora, except that the leather was in slightly better condition. There was no title on this one, but opening it I could see that it was written in letters I didn’t recognise. There were no illustrations in this book, and the only English words I could find were on the bookplate: “From the library of Jurgen Leitner”. Just like mine. Mary told me that the writing was in Sanskrit, but when I asked her if she could read it she just started laughing.

She took the book back and walked over to the desk where the room’s single unshaded light bulb cast stark shadows across the floor. She very deliberately held the book in those shadows for a few seconds and then handed it back to me. I noticed for the first time that the heavy metal music was no longer playing, and the room was utterly silent.

I opened the book, and for a few seconds was confused to see that nothing seemed to have changed. The writing was still unintelligible to me and it felt no different. I lifted it to have a closer look, and as I did I heard something clatter lightly onto the floor. I looked down to see bones. Small animal bones, from what I can tell, but each one was slightly bent and warped into shapes that bones should not form.

As I stared at them, Mary Keay took the book back from me and passed it through the shadows once again. More bones fell. She did this several times, until there was a small pile formed at my feet.

I didn’t know what to say. By this point my head was pounding and the feel of this cramped, dark place with its old tea and ancient books was starting to overwhelm me. All I could think to ask was whether my book did that as well. Mary Keay laughed and told me to look for myself. I began to look through those pages. I hadn’t passed it through any shadows, but I knew something had changed. The woodcuts were starker, somehow, and in the background of each there were new lines, thick and dark, stretching down from the sky. And then I came to the picture of that empty night, but now it had a stark, branching pattern carving through it. A pattern I recognised. My stomach dropped, as though the floor was gone and I was falling.

Struggling to stay standing, I muttered some excuse and went to leave. The ozone smell was back now, stronger than ever, and I had to get out. I fell down the stairs as I fled, badly bruising my hip and twisting my ankle painfully, but I didn’t care. I limped from that place as quickly as I could and hailed a taxi to take me home, fingers still locked in a death-grip on my book.

The branching pattern I had seen in that picture is known as the Lichtenberg figure. It shows the diverging paths of electricity on an insulating material, such as glass or resin. I knew it from the pattern of scars on the back of my childhood friend, who had been struck by lightning because of me.

His name was Toby Smith though he called himself Tubbo, and we’d been 8 years old at the time, playing in a field near my grandmother’s house. When the storm hit, Toby had said that we should go inside, but I wanted to keep playing in the rain. I said that to him, and he just sighed and told me alright. It was as he said these words that he was struck.

The sound when it happened was so loud that it drowned out his screams completely, but it was the smell that really stayed with me: that powerful ozone smell, cut through with the scent of cooking meat. Toby survived, in the end, but the scar, that branching Lichtenberg scar, stayed with him for the rest of his life.

When I got home it took all of my concentration to get up the stairs, and when I finally made it onto my sofa I couldn’t shake that feeling as though I was falling. The smell was so strong I could hardly breathe. I didn’t look at the book, I just lay there. I felt as though I was waiting for something, but I had no idea what.

By the time the knock on the door finally came, I was almost feeling composed enough to answer. Almost. It still took me almost five minutes to work up the nerve to open it. The knock did not come again, but I was positive that whatever was on the other side had not gone away. I reached over, grasped the handle and pulled the door open.

Stood just over the threshold was a man in a long, dark leather coat. His hair was dyed an artificial black, and he had the unshaven look of someone who hadn’t slept in a couple of days. I asked him if he was Gerard Keay. He said that he was, and told me he’d like to see my book. I nodded silently and he followed me inside, closing the door behind him.

I took out the book and placed it on the table. Gerard studied it for some time, but did not touch it. Finally, he nodded and offered to buy it from me for five thousand pounds. I almost laughed when he said that. I would have sold it for a fraction of the amount. I might even have given it away, if it wasn’t for the feeling that that… wouldn’t count somehow. It’s hard to explain. I didn’t care what he planned to do with it, I just wanted to get rid of it, and so I agreed.

Gerard didn’t seem exactly happy at the news. He just nodded gravely and headed towards the door, saying he’d need to get the money and return. I didn’t try to stop him. He left, closing the door behind him and I was alone once again. The whole encounter lasted barely more than a minute.

I sat there, waiting in silence for him to return. It was awful, and I needed to find some way to distract myself from the creeping smell, so I decided to get out my computer and see what I could find out about Gerard and Mary Keay. Typing in their names I don’t know what sort of thing it was that I expected to find, but it certainly wasn’t a news article from 2008 about Mary Keay’s murder.

Police had broken in late September, after neighbours complained about the smell, and found her lying dead in the study. Cause of death was apparently determined to be an overdose of painkillers, but it was judged a murder due to “extensive post-mortem mutilation of the body”. Large pieces of her skin had been peeled away, and hung up to dry on fishing wire, all around the room.

The article had a picture of Mary Keay, and there was no question that it was the same old woman that I had met in Morden, although in the photograph she seemed to have a full head of hair and lacked any visible tattoos.

I frantically started searching for any other information I could find. Other news stories covered Gerard’s trial for his mother’s murder. Apparently he had been acquitted after a significant piece of evidence was deemed inadmissible, although none of the reports seemed to know what exactly that evidence was. It was at this moment the knocking came again. Gerard had returned.

I opened the door. I thought briefly about not letting him in, but I knew he’d wait there as long as he needed to, and I couldn’t think for the reek of ozone that penetrated every one of my senses. I could not hide the terror on my face as he entered, but if he noticed the change in my demeanour then he didn’t react to it. He simply handed me an envelope filled with cash. I didn’t even bother to count it before handing him the book. He looked at the title, then flicked through it very quickly, before laughing, just once and nodding, apparently to himself, as though he’d just come to some sort of decision.

I had expected Gerard to leave immediately, but instead he walked over to my metal waste paper basket and placed the book inside. He reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a bottle of lighter fluid and a box of matches. Within a few seconds the book was ablaze, and the smell vanished almost immediately. Even as my head began to clear, I felt like I had to ask him why, but he just shook his head.

“My mother doesn’t always know what’s best for our family.” That was all he said before picking up the waste paper bin, now full of gently smouldering ashes. I warned him it would be too hot to hold, but he shrugged and said he’d had worse. Then Gerard Keay left, and I never saw him or the book again.

Statement ends.

If I never hear the name Jurgen Leitner again it will be too soon. It was too much to hope that we dealt with all of his library after the incident in 1994 but it would've been nice if Charles had atleast marked this under the current project file. If my luck this far is anything to go by I'm assuming this is something that happens often.

The more I learn about the archives I seem to get convinced that Charles threw the statements around without even reading them. He was Head Archivist for 40 years, I feel this will definitely be a bigger job than I thought. Regardless, most of the verified details in Mister Swains recount match up with our own research.

George couldn't find any records of "Ex Altiora" as a title in existent catalogues in literature. I assigned Bad to double check and still nothing. I doubt he had the title wrong. If there are Leitners we've never heard of, that's concerning indeed. We've been unable to locate Gérard Keay again, he appears to have dipped off the earth as soon after giving his testamony.

There was one interesting thing Zak found in the report on Mary Keays death. The drying sheets of skin had been written over in permanent marker. The language is apparently sanscript. It doesn't appear we have any concrete leads once again.

I will be bringing it up with Fundy, the books must be the institutes top priority. He has harmed m- the world too much. To think i believe this statement, how terrifying the world is becoming.

End recording.


	4. A Father's Love

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Julia Montauk, regarding the actions and motivations of her father; the serial killer Robert Montauk. Original statement given December 3rd 2002. Audio recording by Clay @9@(#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins. 

My father was a murderer. There’s no way I can reasonably deny it at this point; the evidence provided by the police was overwhelming, and I saw his shed myself. I’m not here to try and clear his name. There wouldn’t be much point, anyway, as I’m sure you know he died in prison last year. Seven years isn’t much to have served out of a life sentence, but I doubt it was the early parole he’d have hoped for.

Sorry, maybe that wasn’t in the best taste. Still, his passing is why I feel like I can tell this story; something I’ve never really felt free to do before now. I always expected him to talk about it during the media frenzy that surrounded his trial, but for whatever reason, he kept quiet. I think I understand a bit more now why he never spoke about it, preferring people draw their own conclusions, but at the time, I couldn’t fathom why he just sat there silently, letting others talk for him.

I’d like to tell someone now, though, and I’ve only recently finished my court-appointed counselling sessions, so I’d rather not tell the tabloids and have ‘MY FATHER KILLED TO FUEL CULT MAGIC, SAYS DAUGHTER OF MONSTER’ splashed over page 7 of the weekend edition. So that leaves you guys. Respectable is hardly the word I’d use, but it’s better than nothing.

So yes, my father killed at least 40 people over the course of the five years prior to his arrest in 1995. I won’t recount the lurid details - if you’re interested you can look up Robert Montauk in the newspaper archive of any library. There’ll be plenty there: the papers clearly didn’t care much about the American bombing, because in April of that year they seemed to be talking about nothing but my father. There are also a couple of books on him, none of which I can really recommend, but I guess Ray Cowan’s No Bodies in the Shed is the closest to what I’d consider accurate, although it does imply that I was an accomplice, despite the fact that I was twelve years old at the time.

Honestly, I discovered most of the details from the newspapers and the court, just like everyone else. My father spent my formative years killing dozens of people and I had no idea. But the more I think back over my childhood, the more sure I am that there was something else going on. I don’t have any theories as to what any of this means, but I just need to get it down on paper somewhere. And this seems as good a place as any.

I’ve always lived in the same house on York Road in Dartford. Even now, after all that’s happened, and all I know about what went on there, I can’t bring myself to leave. As far as I know, the shed came with the house; it always sat in the garden: old, wooden and silent. I don’t recall it being used until after the night my mother disappeared. That’s when everything started to get strange.

My memory of early childhood is patchy - mostly isolated images and impressions - but I remember the night she vanished like it was yesterday. I was seven years old, and had been to the cinema that evening for the very first time in my life. We had been to see The Witches at what was back then the ABC, down on Shaftesbury Avenue. I had seen films before, of course, on our tiny living room television, but to see a movie on the big screen was awe-inspiring. The film itself was terrifying, though, and even now I’d say it’s far scarier than any “child’s film” has a right to be. I remember I spent a lot of it close to tears, but had been so proud of the fact that I hadn’t cried at all. When we got home, I lay awake for a long time. That scene where Luke is transformed into a mouse kept playing in my mind, and for some reason, it left me too afraid to go to sleep.

It was then that I heard a thump from downstairs, like something heavy falling over. I didn’t have a clock in my room, so I had no idea what the time was, but I recall looking out of the window and the world was dark and utterly silent. The thump came again, and I decided to go downstairs and see what it was.

The landing was almost pitch black, and I tried to be as quiet as possible so nobody would know I was there. The fourth stair down from the top of the staircase always creaked, and still does in fact, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it creak louder than it did that night as I crept down them so slowly. The lights downstairs were all turned off, except for the kitchen light, which I could see from the bottom of the stairway.

I walked into the kitchen to find it empty. The back door stood open, and a cool breeze blew through it that made me shiver in my pyjamas. I saw something shiny laying on the table. Reaching up, I found my mother’s pendant. The design had always struck me as beautiful: it was silver, an abstract shape of a hand with a symbol on it that I believe was meant to represent a closed eye. I had never seen her take it off. In my child’s mind, I assumed that she had just left it on the table, an accident, and that the open door meant nothing. I went back upstairs, necklace clutched firmly in my hand, to return it to her. She wasn’t in bed, of course. The space next to where my father lay fast asleep was empty.

I gently touched my sleeping father’s shoulder, and he awoke slowly. I asked him where mum was, and he started to say something when he saw the silver chain clutched in my hands. He quickly got out of bed and started to get dressed. As he pulled on a shirt, he asked me where I had found it, and I told him, on the kitchen table. Following me downstairs, his gaze was immediately locked on the open door, and he paused. Instead of going outside, he walked over to the kitchen sink and turned on one of the taps. Immediately there began to flow a dark, dirty-looking liquid and the sick, salty smell of brackish water hit my nose, though at the time I didn’t understand that’s what it was.

The light in the kitchen blew out at that moment and the room got very dark. My father told me everything was fine, that I should go back to bed. His hands shook slightly as he took the pendant from me, and I didn’t believe him, but I did what I was told anyway. I don’t know how long I lay there, waiting for my father to return that night, but I know it was getting light outside when I finally fell asleep.

Eventually I woke up. The house was quiet and empty. I had missed the start of school by hours, but that was fine, because I didn’t want to leave the house. I just sat in the living room, silent and still.

It was almost evening again by the time my father actually returned. His face was pale and he barely looked at me, just walked straight to the cupboard and poured himself a glass of scotch. He sat next to me, drained the glass, and told me that my mother was gone. I didn’t understand. Still don’t, really. But he said it with such finality that I started to cry, and I didn’t stop for a very long time.

My father was a policeman, as I’m sure you’ve read, so as a child I just assumed that the police had looked for my mother and failed to find her. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered they’d never even had a missing persons report filed on her. As far as I know, I never had any living grandparents, and apparently no-one noticed she was gone - which was strange, as I have vague memories of her having friends over a lot before she vanished. Everyone assumes she was one of my father’s first victims, but there was never enough evidence to add it to the official tally. It doesn’t really matter.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think he did it. I won’t deny it makes sense from the outside, but I remember how devastated he was when she disappeared. He started drinking a lot. I think he did try to look after me as best he could, but most nights he just ended up passed out in his chair.

That was also when he started spending a lot of time in the shed. I’d never really paid it much attention before. As far as I was concerned, the sturdy wooden structure was just the home of spiders’ nests and the rusted garden tools my parents would use once a year to attack the overgrown wilderness that was our back garden. But soon after my mother’s disappearance, a sturdy new padlock was placed on the door, and my father spent a lot of time inside.

He told me he was woodworking, and sometimes I’d hear the sounds of power tools from inside, and he’d present me with some small wooden token he had made, but mostly there was silence. It should probably have bothered me more than it did, the hours he spent in there, and that odd smell I sometimes noticed, like tinned meat. But I never really paid it much attention, and I had my own grief to deal with.

He was gone most nights as well. Often, I would wake up from one of my nightmares to find the house silent and empty. I would look for him and he would be gone. I never despaired at this, for some reason, not like I had when my mother vanished. I knew he would return eventually, when he was finished with what I had decided must be ‘police business’. Sometimes I’d lie awake until he returned.

Once, as I lay awake, I heard him come into my room. I pretended to be asleep. I don’t know why, but I thought I’d be in trouble if he found out I was awake. He walked over to me and gently stroked my face. His hands smelled strange. Back then I didn’t know the scent of blood, and mixed with that faint, saline smell of brackish water. He whispered to me then, when he thought I was asleep, promised to protect me, to make sure that “it wouldn’t get me too”.

There was a strangled sound to his words; I think he might have been crying. As he left, I opened my eyes just enough to see him. He stood by the door, his face in his hands, wearing light grey overalls that were stained with a thick, black substance. I often wish I’d asked him about that night. I wonder, if he’d known I was awake, if I had asked him in that moment of weakness… Well, it’s far too late for that now.

Over the next couple of years, I noticed that my father seemed to be injured quite a lot, and there was rarely a time when he didn’t have some sort of plaster, bandage or bruise visible. I’d also occasionally find small bloodspots or smears on the floors or tables, especially in the hall. I got very good at cleaning them, and it never occurred to me to pay much attention to where they came from - I just assumed the blood was my father’s.

He started staying home during the day, and told me he’d been permanently assigned to the night shift. I believed him, of course, and it was only after his arrest that I discovered that had been the point he’d resigned his job on the police force. I don’t know where the money came from after that, but we always seemed to have enough.

Knowing what I know now, it sounds awful to say, but those were some of the happiest years of my childhood. I’d lost my mother, but my father doted on me, and together it seemed like we would get past our pain. I know I’ve made him sound like an alcoholic recluse who lived in the shed, but those were generally nocturnal activities for him. During the day was time he spent with me.

There was only one time I recall him going into the shed during the day. This was a couple of years after my mother’s disappearance, and I must have been about ten. The phone in the kitchen started ringing, and my father was upstairs. I had recently received permission from my father to answer the phone, so I was excited to take up my new responsibility. I picked up the handset and said my memorised phone script into the receiver: “Hello, Montauk residence!”

A man’s voice asked to speak with my father. It was a breathy voice, like that of an old man, and at the time I decided he had a German accent, though, when I was young, a lot of different nationalities and accents were lumped together in my mind under the label “German”. “What is this regarding?” I asked, as I had a whole phone conversation memorised and wanted to use as much of it as possible. The man sounded surprised at this and said hesitantly that he was from my father’s work. I asked him if he was from the Police and after a pause, he said “Yes”. He asked me to tell my father that it was Detective Rayner on the line, with a new case for him.

At this point my father had come down to the kitchen to see who was calling. I told him, and he visibly paled. He took the handset from me and placed it to his ear, not speaking but listening very intently. After a moment, he told me to go up to my room, as this was a “grown-up” conversation. I turned to leave, but as I was heading up the stairs, the light bulb in the landing blew.

The bulbs in our house broke often - my father said we had faulty wiring - so even at that age, I was quite adept at changing them. So I turned around and headed back downstairs to fetch a new bulb. As I approached the cabinet where we kept them, I heard my father’s voice from the kitchen. He was still on the phone and he sounded angry. I heard him say, “No, not already. Do it yourself.” Then he went very quiet and listened, before finally he said okay, that he’d do it as soon as possible. He put down the phone, then went over to the cupboard and poured himself a drink. He spent the rest of the day in the shed.

The one question they kept asking me over and over during the investigation into my father was whether I knew where the rest of the bodies were. I told them the truth, that I had no idea. They claimed they wanted to confirm the identities of the victims, which they couldn’t easily do with what was left.

I didn’t know where the bodies were, but I also didn’t tell them of the other way they might have identified the victims: my father’s photographs. I didn’t say anything, because I had no idea where he kept them, and I thought it would only make things worse if they couldn’t find them, but, yes, my father took photographs.

During those five years, I had gradually started to notice more and more canisters of photograph film left around the house. This puzzled me since, though my dad and I did sometimes go on short holidays, we never took a lot of pictures. Asking him about it, my father told me he had been trying to learn photography, but didn’t trust developers not to ruin his films, as he’d apparently had problems before.

I suggested he make himself a darkroom for developing them himself. I’d seen one in Ghostbusters 2 on TV the previous Christmas, and loved the idea of having a room like that. His face lit up, and he said he’d convert the guest bedroom. He then warned me that once it was done, I could never go in there without his supervision - there would be lots of dangerous chemicals. I didn’t care; I was just so glad that an idea of mine had made my father so happy.

That summer, my father converted the guest bedroom into a darkroom for developing photographs. Like the shed, it was locked almost all the time, but occasionally my father would take me inside and we’d develop photographs of cars or trees, or whatever else a ten- or eleven-year-old with a camera takes pictures of. Mostly, though, my father worked in there alone, and kept the door locked while he did. He seemed almost happy those last couple of years.

I didn’t have an unsupervised look inside until a few weeks before my father was caught. It was a Saturday evening in late autumn, and my father was out of the house. I spent the day watching TV and reading, but as it started to get dark, I found myself bored and alone. Passing by the door to what was now the darkroom, I noticed that the key was still in the lock.

I sometimes think back to that day, and wonder if my father left it deliberately. He’d been so careful for so many years, and then he just forgot? I knew about the dangers, but something inside me couldn’t resist going in.

There were no photos stored there. To this day, I don’t know where my father kept his developed pictures. But there were about a dozen images hung out to dry. They’re still vivid in my mind - black and white and washed in the deep red of the darkroom. Each photo was of a person’s face, close up and expressionless, their eyes were dull and glassy.

I had never seen corpses before, so didn’t really understand what I was looking at. On each face were thick black lines that formed these symbols that I didn’t recognise, but they were clearly drawn on the faces themselves, not just on the photographs. I don’t remember the symbols in any great detail, I’m afraid, just the faces that they were drawn onto, though they weren’t people I recognised. Nor did they match any of the photos the police showed me later.

I never went back in the darkroom after I closed and locked the door behind me that day. I spent the next weeks wondering if I should tell my father what I had seen. I didn’t know what I had seen - not really - but it felt like a bad secret, and I didn’t know what to do.

Finally, I decided to tell him. He was drinking on the sofa at the time, and he turned off the television as soon as I mentioned going into the darkroom. He didn’t say a word as I told him what I’d seen, just looked at me with an expression on his face I’d never seen before. When I was finished, he stood up and walked towards me, before taking me in his arms and giving me the last and longest hug I would ever get from him. He asked me not to hate him, and told me it would soon be over, then turned to go. I had no idea what he was talking about, but when I asked, he just said that I needed to stay in my room until he got back. Then he left.

I did what I was told. I went up to my room and lay in bed, trying to sleep. The air was heavy somehow, and in the end I spent the night staring out of the window at the street below. I was waiting for something, though I didn’t know what.

I remember it was 2:47 in the morning that it started. I finally had an alarm clock, and the image of it is still clear in my memory. I was thirsty, and went downstairs to get a glass of water. I turned on the tap, but what flowed out was a thick stream of muddy brown, brackish water. It smelled terrible, and I froze as I remembered the last time that had happened. My father still wasn’t home, and I went into the living room to watch desperately out of the window, looking down the street for his return. I was terrified.

As I stared down the road, I was struck by how small the puddles of light were from the streetlamps made, stretching far into the distance. But not as far as they should’ve gone. There were fewer lights than there should be, I was sure of it. Then I saw the light at the end of the road blink off. There was no moon out that night, and all the houses were quiet; when the streetlights stopped, there was nothing but black. The next closest streetlight failed. Then the next. And the next. A slow, rolling blanket of darkness, making its unhurried way towards me. The few lights still on in the houses along the road also disappeared as the tide approached. I just sat there, unable to look away. Finally, it reached our house, and all at once the lights were gone and the darkness was inside.

I heard a knock on the front door. Firm, unhurried and insistent. Silence. I did not move. The knocking came again, harder this time, and I heard the door rattle on its hinges. As it got louder it began to sound less and less like a person knocking and more like… wet meat being slammed into the sturdy wood of the front door.

I turned and ran towards the phone. Picking it up, I heard a dial tone, and would have cried with relief if I wasn’t already crying with fear. I dialled the police, and as soon as they picked up I started to babble about what was happening. The lady on the other end was patient with me, and kept on gently insisting I give her the address until finally I was composed enough. Almost as soon as I had told her where I was, I heard the door begin to splinter. I dropped the phone and ran towards the back of the house. As I did so, I heard the front door burst behind me and I heard a… growl - it was rumbling, deep and breathy like a wild animal, but had a strange tone to it that I’ve never been able to place. No matter where I turned, it sounded like it came out of the darkness right behind me. I didn’t have time to think about it as I ran into the back garden, and into a light that I did not expect. There in front of me was the shed. It glowed, a dull, pulsing blue from every crack and seam. I didn’t stop, though, as I heard again that growl behind me, and I ran towards it and pulled at the door.

The shed was not locked that night, and to this day I don’t know if I regret that fact. The first thing I saw when I opened that door was my father, bathed in the pale blue light. I couldn’t see any source for the glow, but it was so bright. He was knelt in the centre of an ornate chalk pattern scrawled on the rough wood of the floor. In front of him lay a man I didn’t know, but he was clearly dead - his chest had been cut open, and still gaped and bled feebly. In one hand my father held a wicked-looking knife, and in the other, he held the man’s heart.

My father was chanting, and as the song rose and fell, the heart in his hand beat to its rhythm, and the blue light brightened and dimmed in time. I looked at the walls, and noticed that they were covered in shelves, each of which contained glass jars, full of what I would later learn was formaldehyde containing a single heart - which also beat in time with the one that dripped in my father’s hand. It was an odd thing to notice at the time, but I remember that the dead man wore the same pendant as my mother - a silver hand with a closed eye design.

I don’t know how long I stood there staring. It might have been hours or it might have been only a moment or two. But then I heard that growl behind me and sensed a presence so close that I could feel the darkness on my back. Before I could react or move or scream, my father’s chant came to a crescendo and he plunged the dagger into the beating heart. All at once, the presence vanished, and the blue glow died. I could no longer hear the beating of the hearts. In the silence, I realised I could hear police sirens in the distance. I heard my dad tell me he was sorry, and then he started to run.

You know the rest. Manhunt, trial, prison, death. They say there were 40 hearts kept in that shed, not including his last victim, but of course the police didn’t arrive until all that was left of it was a grisly trophy cabinet. Whatever I had seen my father doing in there, its effects had long since vanished. I don’t know why my father did what he did, and I doubt I ever will, but the more I go over these events in my head, the more sure I am that he had his reasons

Statement ends. 

There's not much more I can add here, the reports on Robert Montauk are thorough and there are few details to be added. The serial killer enthusiast community has looked into this case and as unsettling as that is, has proved useful in regards to details. 

In addition to the body of Christopher Lawn, 40 preserved hearts were recovered from Robert Montauks shed. In a pattern of 11 hearts on each wall and 7 on on the one with the door. Photos of the patterns don't seem to correspond with any specific pattern of geomotary but perhaps we haven't looked into it enough. 

The symbol on the two pendants is from the "Peoples Church of the Divine Host" a small cult that grew around the minister Maxwell Rayner, in London in the late 80's and early 90's. I recognised the name from statement #1106922 but it may be a coincidence. Mister Rayner himself dissapeared from public view and the group seperated. The police never found any members willing to make statements about Robert. 

Robert Montauk died in Wakefield prison on November 1st 2002. He was stabbed 47 times and bled out before anyone found him. 3 problems with this are that, no culprit or weapon was ever found, he was alone in his cell too which was locked. At the time of his death, the light bulb in his cell was found to have blown out, leaving him in darkness. 

Recording ends.


	5. Vampire Killer

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Trevor Herbert, regarding his life as a self proclaimed vampire hunter. Original statement given July 20th 2010. Audio recording by Clay @9#(#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

Right then. Been almost 50 years I’ve been meaning to pay you people a visit and get this down on paper, but I finally got here. So where to start? My name is Trevor Herbert, like I put at the top of your form there, and I’ve been homeless for most of my life. In fact, if you lived in Manchester, there’s a good chance you’d have heard of me.

They call me “Trevor the Tramp”. I mean, I’m not exactly easy to miss, am I, and I’ve been living there in public view for so long I guess I’ve become kind of an institution. Helps that I’ve always had a kind of uncanny knack for guessing people’s ages. People will come up to me on the street and ask me to guess their age, and I’ll tell them and most of the time they’ll be shocked when I get it right. It’s fun. So everyone around Manchester knows about Trevor the Tramp, sure. I hear someone even made me a page on the Internet and it got a few thousand likes. I don’t know exactly what that means but it sounds nice.

Obviously that’s not why I’m here, though, is it? No, I’m here because I have also dedicated my life to finding and killing vampires.

I have killed five people that I know for sure as vampires, and there are two more that may or may not have been. There is one man I have killed, unfortunately, who I am now sure was human, but I also know he was a violent criminal so I try not to feel too badly about that. I’m sure it’s hard to accept for anyone, even an organisation such as yourselves, but I do not have proof to give you except for the vampire teeth that I will leave with this statement.

Do not feel bad about reporting me to the police for the murders, as I am sure you must, since I have recently received a diagnosis of late-stage lung cancer, and it is doubtful I will be living much longer anyway. That is the main reason for finally putting down on paper the details of the mission I have been secretly undertaking for the last half a century.

I killed my first vampire in 1959. At that point I was still living a mostly normal life, save perhaps for the abuse my family was subject to from my father. He was a vile man who ended up killing my mother in ‘56. It was a clear-cut case of drunken murder, but the courts ruled it as an accident, and my father stayed out of jail. Luckily, myself and my brother only had to endure four months of unpleasantness from him before he finally finished drinking himself to death. I was thirteen, when he finally died, and my brother was fifteen. Following his death, there were several attempts to rehome us as orphans, but they always split us up, and we couldn’t be doing with that, so we’d generally run away. After a while, it became so we were happier finding our way on the streets than in another stranger’s home.

It was in autumn of 1959 that we were taken in by Sylvia McDonald. It wasn’t any sort of official fostering agreement, but it was getting to be quite cold at the end of October, and it just saw us shivering in a side street next to the Kings Arms Hotel, as it was back then, on Tipping Street before the ring road took it over. Looking back, I believe it to have been visiting the pub for the purposes of locating down and outs for use as victims, and in my brother and myself, I must say, it successfully found some.

It looked like an older woman, a widow I assumed, from the way it dressed in black and had a strange manner, which I now know to be the mark of the vampire, but back then I paid no attention to it. Many of the older folks had lived through both wars, and it was not uncommon for them to be somewhat strange. I thought this was the case with Sylvia McDonald, and after a small amount of discussion, my brother and I agreed to the offer of food and shelter.

Let me say a little bit about the vampire’s manner, because once I taught myself to read, I read as much on the subject as I could, and it isn’t covered often or clearly in those books I have found. You see, from my own observations, I believe a vampire to be more like an animal than a man. That is not to be taken as merely a turn of phrase, but more to do with how they work. I do not believe vampires are human in anything more than their appearance, nor have I ever seen evidence that they create more of their kind through feeding.

One thing that should be noted is that they do not speak. In fact, they are in my experience totally silent, having no need for air and no room in their throats for a windpipe. They are able to make themselves understood, however, with absolute clarity, though the manner through which they do so has never been clear to me. When Sylvia McDonald came to us in the alleyway that day, we understood that was the name it gave itself and that we were being offered a meal and a bed, even though it never uttered a single sound.

More than that, I do not recall the fact that it never said a word as striking either of us as strange in the slightest. I have never fully understood how they are able to do this, and I doubt that I ever shall, but I can only assume it to be some instinctive form of hypnosis or mind control.

Another misconception I have always faced when trying to discuss vampires is that people think they cannot go out during the day. They can. While I have witnessed them avoid direct sunlight if possible, and wear generally more covering clothes when moving around during the daytime, they seem to have no significant problem doing so. I would describe them as weaker during the day, but whether this is scientifically due to the sunlight, or simply because evil has less power in the daylight hours is unclear to me. Sylvia McDonald came to us on an overcast afternoon, and enough of its pale flesh was uncovered that, were sunlight to truly harm a vampire, then it would likely have been destroyed.

On that afternoon, my brother Nigel and I agreed to go back to the house of Sylvia McDonald in the hopes of a roof over our heads for a little while. She lived on Loom Street, which is still there, though the house itself was torn down long ago, and there’s just a bit of scrubland now where it used to be. I sometimes go there to pay my respects, since my brother has no burial or grave I can visit.

The house was old, even when I went there in 1959, and entering it I was hit by a stale, coppery smell that I did not recognise as old blood at the time, since I was barely 16 and did not have then the experience I have now. The furniture and wallpaper had clearly not been changed in many decades, and a thick layer of dust covered everything.

Even the floor was pale with dust, except for a stark line where Sylvia McDonald moved, the train of its dress dragging behind it. I remember wondering whether Sylvia McDonald walked exactly the same route through the house always, as I saw other clear lines of passage in the rooms we passed through. None of the furniture looked used, and when I picked up a book from one of the shelves, the pages were solid with damp and mould. I began to feel very uneasy at this point, but whatever powers of persuasion the vampire had calmed me enough to continue following it with my brother.

We went up the stairs, and I was led to a small room with a bed in it. I was made to understand that this would be my room, and was left there as Sylvia McDonald led my brother away to the room next to it. When it returned, it brought a bowl of fruit and offered it to me. The fruit was clearly a few weeks old, and in various stages of rotting, but just to appease the thing I found an apple and a couple of grapes that seemed edible and I ate them. It watched me silently the whole time, and then turned and walked out towards Nigel’s room.

By this time, whatever the creature had done to make me compliant seemed to be starting to wear off, and I was realising just how wrong everything was. I was also realising that it didn’t look like there was any easy escape from the house. All the windows I had seen were barred, and I recalled Sylvia McDonald had locked the sturdy-looking front door behind it after we had all entered. So instead, I just laid down in the old musty bed and I waited.

Couldn’t rightly say what I was waiting for, but soon enough it got dark, and I assumed Sylvia McDonald had gone to sleep, not yet realising the manner of being that I was dealing with. I wanted some light to comfort me, but the old house seemed to have no electricity at all, so I used my cigarette lighter on a candle I found next to the bed and crept towards the door. It wasn’t locked, thankfully, and I left the room assigned to me and walked over to where I believed my brother was.

I went in and found him lying in his own bed, pretending to sleep. After a bit of talk, it became clear that Nigel was no happier with our situation than I was, and we both resolved that another night on the cold streets was better than staying with this strange woman. As we talked through possible ways to escape, however, we heard a rustling sound outside the door, and the handle began to turn. Not wanting to anger our strange host, I crawled under the bed to hide, while Nigel returned to pretending to sleep.

From my vantage point under the bed, I could see the door open, and the skirt of Sylvia McDonald enter and move towards the bed. I simply laid there and tried not to make a sound. I am not proud of this, and sometimes have a certainty that my inaction led directly to my brother’s death, but most of the time I accept that, if I had alerted the vampire to my presence, then I would also have died.

Either way, the fact of the matter is that I did nothing as I heard the sounds of a struggle overhead, and Nigel’s strangled cry. The creature turned quickly and hurled him down, something fell to the floor in front of me, but I didn’t look at it, my eyes locked on Sylvia McDonald as it pounced upon my brother. It opened its mouth for what I then realised was the first time since we met it, and I could see nothing inside save for a dozen long, thick, pointed teeth like a shark.

In one fluid movement, it plunged those teeth into my brother’s neck and tore out a great chunk of flesh. Blood started to spurt from Nigel’s spasming body, as Sylvia McDonald’s throat began to twitch. Its jaw detached and a long tubular tongue about the thickness of my forearm snaked out of its throat and clamped onto the gushing wound. There was an awful slurping sound, the first noise I’d ever really heard the creature make, as the tongue sucked the blood from my brother’s throat.

I just lay there watching as its stomach began to distend and swell, the now bulbous belly straining against the black dress it wore. After the longest ten minutes of my life, the vampire finished. Its tongue retracted back into its throat, still dripping blood onto the now-pale corpse of my brother, and it lay back upon the floor, apparently contented.

As this had been happening all my energy had gone towards not screaming or giving away my presence. But as the vampire lay satiated on the floor, I turned my attention to what had fallen from Nigel’s hand when he had been dragged out of the bed. It was his pocket knife. I had no idea what a small knife like that would do against a creature that seemed far stronger and faster than me, but I didn’t see any option other than to try.

I moved so slowly as I reached for the knife that at times it seemed like I wasn’t moving at all. I was worried that the creature would spot me and strike as it had with Nigel, although I now know that smell is in fact the vampire’s major sense and, with all the blood around, there was little chance of it detecting my scent.

Grasping the knife in my hands, I crept over towards the creature as it placidly digested my brother’s life, until I stood over it. I felt a sudden surge of rage and adrenaline come over me and with a speed and strength I never knew I had, I plunged the knife into Sylvia McDonald’s blood-bloated stomach.

It burst like a sick balloon, and blood began to pour out. The creature’s eyes shot open and it clutched at the wound desperately. Its throat was not capable of uttering a scream but its face displayed a silent pain and anger as it flailed on the floor. Stumbling back, trying to wipe the blood from my eyes, I felt an unexpected burning in my hand. I realised I’d touched the still-lit candle on the bedside table.

I don’t know what I expected to happen when I grabbed the candle and pressed it to the dry part of Sylvia McDonald’s dress. I was just trying to find anything else I could do to harm it before it could recover from its split belly. But I certainly didn’t expect it to catch like dry tinder. The fire spread quickly over its repulsive form, though it did slow somewhat where the clothing or flesh was still moist with blood. It struck me that the vampire must be a very dry creature when not fresh-fed and engorged. Perhaps I had struck before the liquid could spread throughout its body.

Whatever the reason, Sylvia McDonald was alight, and to such a degree that the rest of the room was starting to catch fire as well. I was distraught at the idea of leaving this house without my brother, but he was clearly dead, and I needed to escape.

I recalled the vampire had been carrying a handbag when we first met it, and had used a key from it to lock the front door. It did not have the handbag with it now, though, so I began to desperately search the other rooms of the house, trying to find it. I did find it in the end, in what I assume to be the vampire’s bedroom. I’ll not describe it in detail, except to say that it appears to be where the creature took most of its meals. Hopefully that makes the picture clear enough for you. I found the key, though, and escaped that house before the fire did me any serious damage. I was terrified of the police coming and thinking I was a murderer, so I didn’t stick around. I just fled into the night.

It was almost a decade before I encountered another vampire. I’d been living on the streets all that time, occasionally in and out of various institutions, and had just about managed to convince myself that Sylvia McDonald had just been a bad reaction to the stress of watching my brother’s murder. It was in the late 60s that I learned different.

It was 1968, I remember because that was the year United won the European Cup, and I did quite well out of it - people being generous to begging when they’re happy over a sports win. On a Friday night, I would generally spend my time around the Oasis Club in Lloyd Street, and hit up for change anyone who was slightly the worse for drink. Well, this night in particular I was doing quite well, as it was a warm June evening not too long after the Cup Final, and everyone was in a good mood.

Now, about half eleven that night, I spied a stranger all turned out for dancing, making his way from the club with a lady friend. I reckoned they might be good for a tanner, so I made my approach. I gave them the spiel and waited. The man looked at me and I understood he wouldn’t be giving me any money, and I stepped away. It was as he turned to leave I realised that he hadn’t opened his mouth, and memories of Sylvia McDonald came rushing back to me in a flash.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I followed behind them at a distance. I didn’t try to hide or disguise myself, as I had long since learned, and it’s true now as it was back then, that no-one pays any real attention to a tramp. As I watched, I saw the clearly drunken woman asking this stranger questions, and each time he’d just look at her, and she’d smile as though he’d given some reassuring answer, and stumble on behind him. All the while he never once opened his mouth.

I didn’t rightly know what to do about this. I had no weapon save my brother’s old pocket knife which I had kept sharp all these years, and while I was pretty sure of what I was seeing, I was still hesitant to attack with no provocation and no plan. As we walked, I kept an eye out for any discarded wood or timber and, sure enough, noticed a broken wooden palette partially sticking out of a bin. I grabbed a long shard and used my knife to quickly hack it to a point, ignoring the splinters. While I had not, at that time, done much research into the creatures I faced, believing as I did my experience as a youth to be the product of a disturbed mental state, I was still aware of their supposed weakness to wooden stakes.

I had now followed the vampire, who I would later find out called itself Robert Arden, and its victim back to the building where it apparently lived. It let itself in the front door and the woman followed. I wasn’t fast enough to get in before the front door closed and obviously didn’t have a key, so I went round the windows and, luckily, it seemed the vampire lived on the ground floor.

I watched through the window as it led its victim into a sparsely-furnished living room. I couldn’t see any obvious signs of previous slaughter, but I remembered how cleanly Sylvia McDonald had sucked up all the blood from my brother, so this did not strike me as odd. I gently tried the window, and found it locked, so searched the garden for the heaviest stone I could find, and watched what was happening inside. I had to be sure. Soon enough, Robert Arden moved smoothly behind its now-seated prey, and finally opened its mouth to reveal those rows of shark-like teeth I knew would be there.

I hurled the rock I held through the window, showering the room with broken glass, and causing the woman to scream in shock. Robert Arden raised its head in surprise and for one moment our eyes locked and I knew I had made a terrible mistake. The woman looked at her monstrous companion and, seeing his now open mouth, screamed her terror even louder.

In a single movement, far quicker than I expected, Robert Arden was through the window and on me. I struggled and fought, but it was far stronger than I was, and I could barely keep its jagged teeth from finding my throat. It was the first and last time I ever touched a vampire’s skin with my own. The flesh was cold and spongy, like the inside of a bruised apple, and I felt bile rise in my throat even as I fought for my life.

Finally, its teeth bit into my neck. Not enough to kill me outright but with enough force to cause the blood to flow. At that moment I saw a sort of frenzy enter the eyes of Robert Arden and with a spasm its leech’s tongue surged from its throat and I felt it attach to my neck. I do not know if you’ve ever felt your blood being sucked out of you, but I would not recommend it.

Now it is at this point I have something of an admission to make. For the three years preceding this event, as well as on and off through the years since, I have had a relationship with the drug heroin. I tried it for the first time shortly after Nigel’s death and since then I have periodically relapsed. I have always tried to keep this a secret, as I am aware that I have a certain reputation to uphold and I would not want it to be damaged with the revealing of my addiction. But it is important to this account, as I believe it was whatever heroin still remained in my system that night that caused the vampire Robert Arden to remove its tongue from my neck and start to shake, as though having a violent choking fit.

I lay there, trying to compose myself enough to fight back, when I became aware of the screaming. The woman, who had been brought in as a victim, was standing over the flailing Robert Arden, stabbing it repeatedly with a kitchen knife. Strong and quick as it was, the vampire didn’t seem to be able to cope with the sudden onslaught of violence, and was on the ground. This gave me the precious seconds I needed to get to my feet and locate my improvised wooden stake. I took aim, and plunged it into where I believed the thing’s heart should be. It was easier than I thought it would be - the chest was soft and yielding and there didn’t seem to be any ribcage to stop the blow. Robert Arden went rigid and froze, apparently unable to move its body, though I saw its eyes darting around wildly.

It was at that point the woman, whose name I never discovered, dropped the knife and ran. I never saw her again, but she had already saved my life. I took out my cigarette lighter and set Robert Arden alight. Like Sylvia McDonald before it, it caught fire in a matter of seconds and, by the time the police arrived, there was nothing left but a small patch of scorched tarmac. I was lucky that night, and nobody saw anything or called the police before I was finished and had made my way from the scene, but I was always more careful after that.

Following that night, though, I was never again worried that I might have been wrong about the existence of vampires. I always kept my eyes open for them, although sometimes I was too eager, as was the case of Alard Dupont, who I killed in 1982, and later discovered was a human. It is my belief that they are very rare, and feed only infrequently, as all evidence I have seen points to their feeding being fatal. If there were many vampires, or if they ate often, the number of disappearances would quickly become noticeable to the rest of society.

I do not know what they do with the bodies of their victims, and this has always perplexed me, as they do not have any mechanism for eating solid food, and I do not believe there are many, if any, cases of murder where the body is found completely without blood. I certainly do not think they rise as vampires themselves, as the vampire population seems far too small for this to be a possibility.

Statement ends.

According to George who was here when they took this statement it was at this point Mister Herbert went to take a nap before continuing his statement. He did not wake up. The lung cancer took him at the moment. Apparently he refused to wait another second to state his case and denied going for medical health beforehand.

There is quite a lot of evidence to support Mister Herbert's story apart from the vampirism. There is a news report of a 1959 fire on Lum street he stated that apparently claimed the life of an 18 year old boy. No mention is made of the home owner. A report from 1968 confirms the existence of Robert Arden.

No human remains were found at the site of his murder. There is a murder report of Alard Duopaeount who's body was found partially burnt. There was a small bag left with the statement filled with 6 sharp teeth of various sizes. They match no currently known species. The statement above was a photocopy of a photocopy and I can't find the teeth or the original statement.

This does make me a bit curious as to who or what took them.

End recording.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of this chapter the lore will actually begin. I needed to include these statements for important parts later and I'm thankful to anyone who has read this long. Because the next chapter is very important to the lore I'm going to be taking a while to rewrite a fair bit of it.


	6. Dreams

<-Recording begins->

Statement of Antonio Blake regarding his recent dreams about Charles Batchelor, previous Head Archivist Of The Magnus Institute. Original statement given March 14th 2015, audio recording by Clay %#) £#, current Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute.

Statement Begins

First off, I should admit that I lied to get in here. I know your criteria are very clear: “Any supernatural or unexplainable experience or encounter occurring within the realms of apparent reality. No out-of-body experiences, visions, hallucinations or dreams”. And this is about dreams, make no mistake, but I think you need to hear it anyway. Whether you believe it or not, well, that’s up to you. I just don’t feel like I could rightly go on my way without at least trying to explain myself.

You see, I had a dream about you.

I know how that sounds, and I can assure you we don’t know each other, but the Institute, the building, even this room… I saw them in my dream as clearly as I see them here before me now. So no, I don’t have any tale about a shambling horror in the dark. I ask you to read on, though, as this wasn’t the sort of dream you just ignore.

I should probably give a little bit of background about myself rather than just gibbering about dreams and prophecies. I’ve lived in London for almost a decade now. I came here to do my undergraduate degree at the London School of Economics. I ended up taking a position with Barclays shortly after graduating and did well enough there. It didn’t last long, though; I barely made it through a full year before the stress of my new job, not to mention some problems in my personal life, led to me having a full nervous breakdown. I’d broken up with Graham, my boyfriend of six years and had to leave the home we shared, going to stay with some of the few friends that had survived my year of stress-fuelled outbursts and constantly cancelled plans.

It was there, sleeping on my friend Anahita’s sofa, in the depths of my misery, that I first started to have the dreams. I found myself standing atop the very peak of Canary Wharf and overlooking the Barclays building where I had spent so many hateful hours. Behind me I could feel the pulsing beat of the light that stands atop that looming tower; it thrummed through me and I could see the glow pass across my skin like oil but, try as I might, I could not turn around to look at it.

It was then that I noticed that there was something wrong with the city below me. It was dark, lit by the sickly orange glow of the streetlamps and there too something pulsed oddly. Looking down I could see a web of dark tendrils criss-crossing the streets and crawling up the buildings. They were like blood vessels, thick and dark, some as wide as roads and some as thin as a telephone wire, and they all throbbed in time with the beat of light behind me. I needed to get closer.

Lucid dreaming has never been a skill I’ve possessed, and I generally get swept along in the current of whatever runs though my sleeping consciousness. So it came as something of a surprise when my wordless desire to get closer became manifest and I moved forward. Even more surprising was that my forward motion brought me over the edge of Canary Wharf’s roof and I fell. I plummeted, I don’t know how far, until I hit the ground with a crack. I would have expected this to wake me but instead I simply lay there, spasmed by dream-pain, you know, the knowledge of pain without the white heat of nerves. After some while - who can say how long in sleep - I became standing again, and started to move through that veined orange hellscape that I knew to be the City.

As I moved - I will not say walked, for that would not be quite correct - I saw people. Not many, and not moving, but they were there. They leered like photographs, overexposed and washed out, caught and immortalised in a single instant. Each had those tendrils wrapped around them, pulsing against their stillness.

One had a thin black vein that snaked around her arms and appeared to vanish into where her heart would sit. Another, an older gentleman in a dark blue suit, laid on the ground with a beating mass the size of a tree trunk crushing his legs. On the face of each and every person I saw was that same rictus of surprise, pain and terrified confusion. I had never dreamed like this before, and I knew there was something in it beyond my own reeling consciousness.

Eventually my wandered drifting led me back to the Barclays building. Something inside me wanted to go inside, to see what it was like in this rhythmic, fleshy dreamscape. The lights were on, but like they were a sodium-vapour orange like those outside, and as with all the other lights their brightness pulsed in and out in that beating world, which seemed to rule over all this place.

The desks were set up as I knew them to be but there were no people that I could see. I took the stairs, as something about the thought of riding the lift filled me with a cold dread. It was 23 floors to the office where I worked but if I even had legs in this place they were not what carried me up that stairwell. It was there I found my own desk, clear and empty as I had left it some weeks before.

I then knew all at once that there was something in the small office next to me. I felt it in the rhythm of my dream, and I carried myself across to see. It had been the office of my old line manager, John Uzel, and he was inside. One of the dark black veins had snaked in through the window and seemed to have suspended John two feet from the floor, wrapped lightly around his throat. Like all the others he was still, an image held in place, dangling and hanged by this pulsing mass of otherness.

I awoke at that point. Normally, a nightmare would leave me a sweating, wide-eyed mess, but that morning I felt invigorated. It came to me that, while the dream had in all ways appeared as nightmarish, I had never felt any true discomfort. Even my fall at the beginning had been curiously lacking in any true distress. I tried to put it from my mind as I searched through the jobsites, but something about the dream lingered, like a foul odour you only smell when you’ve stopped thinking about it.

I hadn’t seen John Uzel in several months - he had left the company some time before my breakdown, and I had never known him that well, but the image of his face in my dream wouldn’t leave me, so I resolved to find out why he had returned to my mind in such an odd manner. For whatever reason, the idea that there might be no cause for his appearance, that it may be entirely incidental, never occurred to me.

I had been offered the chance to return to Barclays after my rather dramatic departure, once my mental health was in a better state, but at that point I couldn’t even take the Docklands Light Railway, as I’d get a panic attack whenever the train hit Poplar and the looming figure of the Barclays building and Canary Wharf came into view. I had declined the offer, but I still kept in contact with some of my now ex-colleagues, so emailed a few of them to see if they knew how to get in touch with my old manager. It didn’t take long to find out the truth - John Uzel had apparently hanged himself following the loss of a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that this shook me deeply. Again, there was no question to me that it may have been a coincidence. I knew, I still know, that what I saw in my dream deliberately mirrored his fate.

I don’t remember my dreams for the next few nights, but I do remember that I had that same dream again the following Saturday. It was the same in every detail, except there were different people. Some remained the same, but others were new or had disappeared, and those that I remembered had faded, like wallpaper left too long in the sun.

Again, I began atop Canary Wharf, with the light pulsing behind me, and once I was down I found myself able to traverse the city at will, watching all the figures wrapped in those throbbing veins. I returned to where John had been, and sure enough, there he remained, though faded to the point where if I didn’t know who he was already, I could not have identified him. The tendrils that wrapped his throat were as dark as they ever had been, though.

Knowing now what I did about John, I could see the deaths of each poor soul I saw as I wandered through the dream. The dark vines would clutch the head of the stroke victim, the lungs of a cancerous smoker and would bury the car crash victims under the vastness of their bulk. I did not go towards the hospital, as so many of those thick and rubbery lines led towards it that I could see no space within that was not choked with them.

These dreams have been a regular part of my sleeping for about eight years now. Even as life improved and I found a new job and place to live - believe it or not, I now work selling crystals and tarot cards in a “magic” shop - they continued to crop up a few times each month. If there’s one advantage to working where I do, it’s that I’ve been able to read every book on esoteric dreaming ever written, but none of them even come close to what I have experienced. I tried to make peace with the dreams for some time, reasoning that as long as they caused me no discomfort, they were harmless. This worked fine until I saw my father in the dream, walking down Oxford Street, the pulsing veins climbing up his leg and into his chest.

I tried to warn him of course - asked leading questions on his health and how he was feeling, whether he’d been tired recently. I even went so far as to book him a doctor’s appointment, much to his annoyance. It did no good, though - ten days later, the heart attack came for him, and despite the rapid response of the paramedics and how much of his medical history I had immediately to hand, there was nothing I could do to save him. He died on New Year’s Eve, and as 2014 ended, so did any hope I had of my dreams doing good in the world.

It took a month and a half for my father’s image to fade from the orange glow of the streetlamps in my dream London. And by my estimation he had appeared about ten days before his death. I tell you this because I feel you have a right to know the sort of timescales that we’re dealing with here. I haven’t had much of a chance to experiment or see anything more specific, I’m afraid. There are so many people who die in London, and I know so few of them.

But I recognise you. As I write these words I can see you in the other room, eyes locked on whatever book you’re diverting yourself with; I recognise you from my dreams. They said at the front desk that you review all the written statements, so I can only hope that you take the time to read through this one fully.

Allow me to explain in a bit more detail. It was the night before last that the dream came again. It started as it always did, with me on top of Canary Wharf, but almost immediately I could feel that something had changed. The dull orange glow that thrummed up from below seemed muffled somehow and there was an oppressive knowledge within me that something was deeply wrong. Looking down, I could see that the veins, whose domination of the dreamscape had only ever been partial before, had thickened and now seemed to cover almost the whole space of every street.

They still pulsed as before but rather than pumping their dark, unknown cargo invisibly, there would now sometimes be seen a dark red light that travelled along the inside of them. I thought I saw this red light illuminate faces and shadows within those tendrils but it moved too quickly for me to be sure of any details beyond the direction. This was not something I had ever seen happen before in these dreams, and I was aware that I had two choices: to follow the light to wherever it might lead or to turn and retreat into the waking world. I decided to follow the path of that scarlet glow, though I found I was floating some distance from the ground, so thick were the vines below.

I followed them for some time; how long exactly I couldn’t say. I never seemed to travel faster than walking speed in these dreams and yet the distances I covered as I passed through the orange twilight of this pulsating other-London seemed far further than the time it took to traverse. Such is the way of dreams, I suppose. All I know for sure is that I realised after some time that the red light was leading me towards Vauxhall and the Thames. There were fewer people visible here - did rich people die less? Or perhaps they just had greater control over where they died? Or maybe they just couldn’t be seen, fighting off death for so long that when it came at last its icy tendrils covered every inch of them.

I crossed the Thames, and the bridge was knotted high with the flashing vines. One or two of them seemed to pass through the river itself, and the occasional flash of red could be seen beneath the water, but most of them were laid across the bridge. Finally, I saw the destination of the blood-tinged glow. A small building, standing alone on the other side of the bridge near the Embankment. I couldn’t have told you what the street was called; the London of my dreams has no street signs. It was old, pillared and possessed of a quiet dignity. It was this building into which all the veins flowed: every door, every window was solid with them. When the bursts of red light passed into it, the whole building glowed crimson. I could see a bronze plaque next to the door, not quite covered. It read: The Magnus Institute, London. Founded 1818.

I entered, though I couldn’t tell you how. The veins blocked every possible entrance entirely and yet I found myself moving through them. I saw the corridors, these corridors, choked with that shadowed flesh, and passed through them, following that red light that would now pulse so bright that I knew were I to see it awake it would have blinded me. It led me to a room, the label of which was still visible, and read “Archive”. I entered to see walls covered with shelves and cabinets stretching off into the distance. These shelves were coated in a sticky black tar, which I knew at that moment was the thickened, pulpy blood that pumped through each and every one of those veins.

At the front of the room stood a desk, and the veins were wrapped around it so tightly and so thick that I knew that this must be where they ended. Getting closer I realised that there was a person sitting at that desk and it was them that all of this scarlet light was flowing into. I could see none of the figure’s body beneath the flesh that enclosed them, but as I moved around I saw the face was uncovered. It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city. That was when I awoke.

I’m well aware that I don’t even know your name, and I have no responsibility to try and prevent whatever fate is coming for you. Based on my previous experience, such a thing is likely impossible anyway, but after what I saw I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try. I did as much research into your Institute as possible, and arranged an appointment to provide a statement about some spurious supernatural encounter. Even then I was told that the Archivist only reviews the written statements once they have been taken, so here I am, pouring out my lunatic story on paper in the hopes that you might eventually read it.

If you do see this in time and read this far, then to be honest I don’t know what else to tell you. Be careful. There is something coming for you and I don’t know what it is, but it is so much worse than anything I can imagine. At the very least, you should look into appointing a successor.

Good luck

Statement ends.

I'm sure I don't need to explain how bothering it is to find this statement. I'm not- entirely sure whether to ask Fundy about this. When I was hired he was vague about what happened to Charles Batchelor. I asked if he could guide me around the archives and he simply told me he had passed away and not to worry about it. Now that I think about it he exactly said "she died in the line of duty".

I assumed it was a stroke at his desk or something similar. I don't believe in the predictive power of dreams obviously but still it's a deeply unsettling statement to find. I asked Bad to look into it as I don't trust Zak and George to have not done it as a joke. He came up with nothing. Antonio Blake was a fake name and all the contact details described were also fake.

If this is genuine, I have no idea if Charles read this statement before he passed away but if anyone comes in dreaming about my death, then I intend to listen carefully. It's odd though, what reason would Mister Blake have for changing his name. I suppose I won't ever really know.

End Recording.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp I misremembered this statement and I don't have to change anything which means weve got two more chapters before teh frost actually rewritten statement.


	7. The Bone Turners Tale

<-Recording begins->

Statement of Sebastian Adekoya, regarding a new acquisition at Chiswick Library. Original statement given June 10th 1999. Audio recording by Clay @9£(#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins.

Books are amazing, aren’t they? I mean, when you think about what they really are. People don’t give the actuality of language the weight it deserves, I feel. Words are a way of taking your thoughts, the very make-up of yourself, and giving them to another. Putting your thoughts in the mind of someone else. They are not a perfect method, of course, as there’s plenty of scope for mutation and corruption between your mind and that of the listener, but that doesn’t change the essence of what language is.

Spoken aloud, though, the thought dies quickly if not picked up. Simple vibrations that vanish almost as soon as they are created, though if they find a host, then they can lodge there, proliferate, and maybe spread further. Still, it is not a reliable method in terms of a thought’s endurance, as humans are fragile creatures, and rarely last a century.

A book, though, is another story. There are written texts that have outlived the civilisations that created them. Imagine, thoughts hundreds, thousands of years old, preserved and ready to be taken again. Corrupted, or translated, perhaps, by a culture that does not understand them, but still, ideas that have outlived by lifetimes the mind that first conceived them.

Will the thoughts that first ran through Shakespeare’s head ever stop being thought by someone, somewhere? And a book, so dense with a mind’s fossilised creations, is it any wonder they have been ascribed such power throughout the ages? Or that an old library, with heavy tomes covering every wall, seems to have such a weight to it, beyond the physical presence of the texts it holds?

I used to work at Chiswick Library. I didn’t have such ideas back then, though. I just knew I loved books, always had, and so when the opportunity arose to work in my local library I jumped at the chance. I had been a voracious reader ever since I was old enough to hold a book for myself, and even before that my mother tells me I would pester her constantly to read to me. I suppose you might say my mind has always been receptive to the thoughts that lurk in the written page.

Still, Chiswick Library is a long way from the cramped and austere libraries you’re probably imagining. It’s light and airy, with bookshelves and carpets that speak more of cash-strapped local councils than of the rich majesty of knowledge. It has an extensive children’s section and the vast majority of its stock are dog-eared paperbacks of true crime, literary fiction and reference books. It has a modest collection of books on tape and the atmosphere, though quiet, is far from oppressive. In a word, I would sum the place up as ‘unthreatening’.

It was three years ago when this happened. I had already been working there for about a year when the book first turned up. Now, we used to buy all of our books new, and I never did any of the acquisitions for the library, so I couldn’t say when or where it might have been bought from, but it looked old and pretty beaten up when I first noticed it. It was handed back with four other books at the front desk, and as I was scanning them through, I noticed that one of the barcodes didn’t seem to match up. The barcode and ISBN both registered as being that of Trainspotting, by Irvine Welsh, but the book itself was an almost featureless black paperback, with a title on the front in a faded white serif font: The Boneturner’s Tale.

I was a bit confused, and called the librarian, Ruth Weaver, over to ask about it. She didn’t recall seeing it ever before, but stuck in the front was the ex-libris bookplate of Chiswick Library, as well as a lending label with a handful of stamps going back several years. Ruth shrugged and told me not to worry too much about it - we’d get it recorded and put on the system properly, but something about the situation bothered me, so I decided to check the record of the man who had returned it.

His name, at least according to his library card, was Michael Crew, and sure enough, three weeks ago he had borrowed four books from us. Specifically, the four others he had returned. I suggested to Ruth that perhaps he was a self-published author who was trying to trick his way onto our shelves, and she laughed, saying that was probably it, although why anyone would go to the trouble of faking it just to get on the shelves of Chiswick Library was beyond her. The book even looked worn, though, like it had seen decades of being read, with a line creased down the spine, and one half of the cover faded from the sun. Nor, from what I could see, did it list any author at all.

It was at that moment that Jared Hopworth came in, and I had to put the book to one side. Jared and I had once been fast friends; growing up on the same road, attending the same schools, we had spent much of our early life as inseparable. But he had always been, well, not to put too fine a point on it, thick as mud, and when I went away to university, he stayed behind. I think he saw it as something of a betrayal, and when I finally returned, I knew immediately something had changed between us. He spent the time I was away becoming a bit of a crook, and upon my return, began what would eventually become a campaign of petty terror. He was always very careful to stop before he did anything that might get the police involved, and I guess there was enough leftover affection from a childhood spent together that I never really thought about reporting him. It wa -

Oh, erm, hello Fundy

"Do you have a moment?"

Not really, I’m sort of in the middle of something dude. 

"I understand, it’s just that Miss Herne has lodged a complaint."

A complaint? I could just as easily complain about her wasting my time! I would be stupid to discount the possibility of head trauma from her crash and it all seems far fetched any-

"That’s not how it works, Clay."

I wouldn’t even have had to do the recording if Rosie kept her equipment in better condition.

"Regardless, I would prefer that you not antagonise anyone connected to the Lukas family. They are patrons of the Institute, after all." 

Fine, fine, I’ll be more lovely. Now, can I get back to work?

"Very well. By the way, have you seen George?"

Oh, he’s off sick this week. Stomach problems, I think.

Blessed relief if you ask me.

Statement resumes.

It was worst when Jared visited the library, because that inevitably meant that he was bored enough to seek me out for harassment. Sure enough, he started chatting with me, meaningless jibes that served to wait it out until Ruth, who didn’t know about Jared’s problems with me, returned to her office and closed the door. As soon as she had done so, he turned, and, in a single movement, tipped over the metal returns cart, spilling the recently received books all over the floor. He smiled at me and apologised. I did my best not to show any irritation, or indeed any reaction at all as I slowly walked around and bent down to start collecting them. As I rose to my feet, I felt an impact on the back of my head, and staggered.

Behind me, Jared stood holding the book I had put aside, The Boneturner’s Tale, and had apparently picked it up to hit me with. But rather than offering me a fake apology, or further violence, instead his eyes were locked on the book. We stood there in silence for a few seconds, until he said something about needing something new to read, turned around, and walked off.

I was, I will admit, a bit unsettled. As far as I could recall I had never seen Jared read… well, anything, really. And the look in his eyes when he had left had something in it not entirely unlike fear. Still, it was a welcome relief to have him gone, and I quickly tidied up the rest of the books before Ruth noticed anything amiss.

There was nothing else I recall that happened that day at the library, but on the way home afterwards, I passed by Jared’s house. I had moved back in with my parents while I got everything sorted out after university, and he had never moved out of his childhood home, so we still lived on the same street. It was late September at this point, so by the time I had walked back from the library it was dark, and I noticed a small shape moving in the pool of orange light below the streetlamp.

As I got closer, I realised with a slight start that it was a rat, and not a dirty, wild rat but a large, white one, quite well-kept and clearly once a pet. But there was something very wrong with it. It was dragging itself slowly, pulling from the front legs, and I saw that the back half of it was flat, as though deflated somehow. I thought it must have been run over, but there was no blood or sign of crushing, nor did it seem to be in any actual pain. It just had a back half that flopped and twitched obscenely as it made its gradual way across the lighted pavement and out into the darkness. I just stood there and watched, transfixed by it, until it disappeared from view. Thinking about it now, I remember its head was turned at a strange angle, far further round than it should have been, although I might be getting confused. Many of these experiences run together when I look back on them. There was no light on in Jared’s house, but I hurried home quickly after that.

I didn’t see Jared again for some time. At first I was just happy for the space, but as the days turned into weeks I started to feel something I wouldn’t have expected to - worry. If it hadn’t been for the way he had left last time, it probably wouldn’t have bothered me, but he had looked so strange, and even without him coming to the library, it was rare I would go a week without seeing him. By now it had almost been a month. Still, I resisted the urge to go to his house and check. If it turned out he was fine, then I’d be inviting a whole world of unpleasantness, and besides that, I reminded myself, he wasn’t my problem anymore.

It was late October when Jared’s mother came in. It was near the end of the day, and outside was already dark. I was putting up a display about good Hallowe’en reads before heading home, when I heard the door open. I turned around and there she was. It took me a few seconds to recognise her, if I’m honest. I hadn’t seen much of her in the years since Jared and I had been close, and she had aged noticeably. Mrs. Hopworth wore a bulky overcoat, though it wasn’t that cold yet, and her arm hung down in a sling. Something about the angle of the arm and how it hung there seemed faintly abnormal, and I wondered if she had broken it.

When I asked Mrs. Hopworth if she was okay, she just stared at me, her eyes burning with hatred. With her good arm she reached into her coat and pulled out a small, black paperback. She threw it on the floor without saying a word and turned to leave. I couldn’t help myself, I asked her if Jared was alright. She spun back and started to swear violently at me, told me I had no business with her son and that I, and my books, were to stay away from him. As she spoke, I couldn’t look away from her arm and the odd ways it twisted as she gestured. How her fingers seemed to bend the wrong way. I was glad that Ruth had gone home early, as I didn’t want her to witness the disturbing confrontation I had now apparently caused.

When she had finished, Mrs. Hopworth spat towards me, though I noticed she was careful to avoid spitting at the book that now lay on the floor between us, and left. I put down the copy of Stephen King’s Misery that I now realised I’d been clutching, and approached the discarded volume that lay on the carpet. The battered black cover seemed the same as when I had first seen it weeks ago, with that faded white title on the front: The Boneturner’s Tale. I reached down to pick it up, but before I did so a thought flashed across my mind, a memory of the last time I had seen Jared, and I grabbed some tissues from the desk before using them to pick up the book. Even then I felt my skin crawl as I held it.

I decided not to deal with it that night. I wasn’t entirely sure that reading it in the daytime would be that much better, but shadows cast from outside seemed to have gotten that much starker since the book had been brought back into my library, and it scared me. I placed it in the book returns cart and left, double-checking I had firmly locked the door behind me.

It rained heavily that night. My room is in a converted attic, and when the weather is bad, it’s as if I can hear every raindrop against the window that is just above my bed. It wasn’t a storm, there wasn’t the wind for it, it was just that heavy pounding rain that drummed and beat on the glass above me. I couldn’t sleep. There was a nagging apprehension in my mind, something that after three hours lying in bed had turned into almost a panic. How could I have just left the book? There was something wrong with it, that much was obvious. What if Ruth came in earlier than I did tomorrow and took it? What would happen to her? Should I have destroyed it?

That last thought was quickly pushed away. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to destroy a book, even one with such a strangeness to it. It surprised me just how easily I accepted that The Boneturner’s Tale had dark powers, but I suppose I’ve always felt that books have a sort of magic to them, so it was really just a confirmation of what I had suspected, deep down, for a long time.

It was two in the morning when I decided that I couldn’t just leave it there overnight. I got up, dressed, and quietly headed out into the rain towards the library, making sure to take my gloves. My coat was supposed to be water resistant, but still managed to soak in the twenty minutes it took me to walk there. I had the key from locking up that night, and deactivated the alarm as I entered.

It was almost pitch black inside, and part of me wanted to keep it that way, but I turned on as many of the lights as I could without it being immediately obvious outside the building. It wasn’t many, and I still had to half-feel my way through the foyer and into the library proper. As I approached the desk, and the book returns cart where I had left The Boneturner’s Tale, I began to step less cautiously. It was darker in that corner of the library, and I put a hand out to steady myself against the handle of the small metal cart. I’d taken my gloves off at that point, and my hand came away wet. I quickly fumbled for the torch I had snatched before heading out and turned it on. Red dripped and pulsed from the cart, soaking the pages and forming a small pool around it. The books were bleeding.

I laughed at that. It seemed so appropriate somehow, so utterly correct that those neighbouring books should suffer, should be contaminated by it. Just as it seemed right and proper that, when my torch found The Boneturner’s Tale, it was dry, unmarked by the gory scene around it.

I put my gloves back on, and carefully took out that sinister volume and placed it on the desk. Perhaps I should have fought harder against the temptation to look inside, but my curiosity was too strong. The thick gloves made turning individual pages almost impossible, and I still had enough good sense to keep them on, so I just opened it on a few random pages and started reading. Perhaps I was being paranoid. After all, I touched the book with my bare hands when it was first given in to the library, and had no problems, but the image of Jared’s mother wouldn’t leave my head. How her arm had twisted when it moved. I decided to keep the gloves on.

It was written in prose, and certainly seemed to be a story of some kind. The part I read dealt with an unnamed man, at various points referred to as the Boneturner, the Bonesmith or just the Turner, watching an assembled group of people as they made their way into a small village. It’s unclear from what I read whether he is travelling with them, or simply following them, but I remember being unsettled by the details he observed in them: the way the parson would move his hand over his mouth whenever he stared too long at the nuns or how the cook looked at the meat he prepared with the same eyes that looked at the pardoner. It was only at that point that I realised the book was describing the pilgrims from The Canterbury Tales.

Now, this certainly wasn’t some lost section of a Chaucer classic. It was written in modern English, with none of the archaic spelling or pronunciation of the original, and besides that the writing itself was of questionable quality. There was something compelling about it, though. The debate about how finished The Canterbury Tales were… well, it’s a very real debate. In the Prologue, over a hundred tales are promised, but the most complete surviving version doesn’t even reach two dozen. The book just sort of ends, with Chaucer adding a short epilogue imploring God for forgiveness. A plea that is generally read as sarcastic or rhetorical.

I flicked ahead a few pages, and found the Bonesmith had apparently crept up to the Miller while he slept. It described him silently reaching inside him, and… it’s a bit hazy. All I remember clearly is the line “and from his rib a flute to play that merry tune of marrow took”. And as for the rest, I don’t recall in detail, but I know that I almost threw up, and that the Miller did not survive. This was on page sixteen, and it was a thick book.

I turned to the frontispiece, desperately curious as to how this book had ended up in our library. In the harsh light of the torch, I could see the creases and peeling edges of the Chiswick Library label, which usually meant it had been removed and re-stuck, or taken from another book entirely. I could even see the edges of another label underneath. Using a pair of scissors, I carefully peeled off the top one, but was disappointed. It was the label for another library, probably the last place it had been left, although I think it must have been in Scandinavia, because it was something like the library of Jergensburg or Jurgenleit or Jurgerlicht or something like that. It didn’t help me.

I was all set to return to reading the thing, when I heard the sound of breaking glass behind me. I turned around to see Jared Hopworth standing in front of the shattered window. Or at least, I assume it was Jared, as it demanded the book from me in Jared’s voice, but wore lose fitting trousers, and a thick coat with a hood that almost completely covered his face. Or its face.

He was longer than Jared had been, and stood at a strange angle, as though his legs were too stiff to use. When he gestured for the book, I saw that his fingers looked… sharp, as though the skin at the ends were being pushed into a tight point by something inside. I told him that the library was closed, because at that moment I could think of nothing else to say. He ignored me, and demanded again that I give him the book. That was when I did something a little rash, which is to say I punched him.

I had never really thrown a punch in anger before, or even desperation, so it came as quite a shock to me when I managed to drive a single, solid fist into his solar plexus. But as I did this, and this is the part that still gives me nightmares, I felt his flesh give way and almost retract, drawing me in close. And then I felt his ribs shift, shut tight around my hand, as though his ribcage were trying to bite me. They were sharper then I would have thought possible, and at last, this was what actually started me screaming. Never before or since have I ever screamed like that, and I’m still a bit surprised I’m capable of making such a noise, but there you have it.

In my panic I dropped the copy of The Boneturner’s Tale and, in less than a second, Jared was on it. He released my hand and grabbed it with a frantic desperation, before he turned to run back out the way he came in. I started to chase after him, until I saw how he was moving. How many limbs he had. He had… added some extras. That was the moment it finally all got too much for me; I stopped running. It wasn’t my book, it wasn’t my responsibility and I had no idea what I was dealing with, so I didn’t. I just stood there in a daze and watched the thing that was once Jared disappear out into the rain. I never saw him again.

The police turned up soon after. Someone had apparently heard my screams and called in a report. I spun some tale about falling asleep at my desk and being woken up by an attempted robbery. God knows how I explained the bloody books, because it wasn’t some disappearing phantom. It took weeks to get out. Everyone seemed to believe me, though, and miraculously I kept my job. I haven’t seen Jared in the years since, and I haven’t done any further research on the book. The best scenario I can possibly imagine is that this statement is the last I ever need to hear or speak about Jared Hopworth or The Boneturner’s Tale.

Statement ends.

This makes me..

Deeply unhappy. I've barely been in the archives and I've found evidence of 2 seperate surviving books from Jurgen Leitners library. I would dismiss all of it until he mentioned that book. I've seen what the books can do and I believe every word. 17 years out of date as it is this statement is still very concerning to me. I'm going to talk to Fundy again, even when he denied my request before.

Zak and Bad have looked into the events here and Jared Hopworth was arrested for breaking and entering as well as assault. He did manage to escape though and took the book with him.

I asked George to hunt down Mister Adakoye himself but I was told he passed away in 2006. He was found lying dead in the middle of the road in the night of April 17th. There was no crushing or impact on his body but the inquest ruled it as a hit and run due to the mangled position in which he was found. The funeral was closed casket.

Recording ends.


	8. Freefall

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Moira Kelly, regarding the dissapearence of her son Robert. Original statement given October 20th 2002. Audio recording by Clay @8£(#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins.

You must forgive me if it takes a while to get this all down on paper. I’m not a fast writer and what I saw is… It’s all very well to say “write down what you saw”, but what if you don’t have the words? What I saw doesn’t make any sense, and it makes my head hurt awfully when I try to remember it well enough to describe.

Am I mad? What happened is mad. It can’t have happened. But it did. It took my Robert, and… now I can’t even think of how to put it down in a way that explains it. Maybe somewhere in your library are the words that explain what happened, what I saw, but I haven’t read your books, and knowing wouldn’t bring him back. I suppose I’ll just have to try.

My son, Robert, was always an adventurous boy. Even when he was a child he’d be running off and getting into scrapes every chance he got. We were living out in the country back then, Althorpe, a little village in Lincolnshire, and every chance he got Robert would be out in the woods with his friends, climbing trees and exploring deep into the forests. He had a few other children who would join him, but he always climbed higher than they did, always pushed further. I can’t even remember all the times he almost got himself lost out there when he was growing up.

As he got older, his interests changed, but that sense of danger never left him. I used to have to drive him half an hour every Wednesday, because that was the closest leisure centre with a climbing wall, and he was obsessed with reaching the top. After he went away to university, he’d come home every holiday with some new dangerous sport he’d taken up: wakeboarding, mountain-biking. He almost missed his father’s funeral because he was away on a scuba-diving trip to Cyprus, and only just managed to book a last minute flight home. It wasn’t his fault, of course, Stephen’s death came as a shock to us all; what I mean to say is… I wasn’t at all surprised when he told me a few years ago that he’d gotten very involved in skydiving.

It had started as a charity thing. His last year at Yarmouth he decided to do a skydive for a charity he’d been volunteering with. I went along to support him when he did it, and when he touched down, I could see it in his eyes, even before he’d removed his parachute, that he was in love. Since then, it was rare that a month went by without him throwing himself out of a plane, to the point where I wondered where he was getting the money, as from what I hear it’s not a cheap hobby, and he certainly wasn’t getting much from me.

Shortly after Robert graduated, he came to visit. He was the happiest I’d seen him since his father passed away, and when I asked him about it, he said he’d got a job with a company that ran skydiving all over the country. They were called Open Skydiving, and, his face was beaming when he said this, he was now a fully qualified skydiving instructor. I was happy for him of course, even though every time he described jumping it sounded quite dreadful to me. I had always made it clear that he was never going to get me up there, plummeting through the sky.

After that, I didn’t see him much. He was home for Christmas and Mother’s Day, if I was lucky, but aside from that, it was the occasional phone call, or even a postcard if he was running a dive at somewhere far away. I have a small stack of them back home, all I really have to remember him by. I remember he sent me one from Aberystwyth, of all places, not too far back, and he signed it “with love from your freefalling son”. I used to really like that, but now the phrase just makes shudder.

He was happy, though. He was doing what he loved. I try to hold on to that. There was no way for me to know that anything was wrong. I mean, nothing was wrong. I’m sure of it. Not until that last time.

He came to see me three months ago. I was surprised, as June is the height of the season and his last phone call had seemed to say that he was expecting to be busy right up until winter arrived. Still, here he was, standing on the doorstep and he looked to be in an awful state. He had deep bags under his eyes and it didn’t look as though he’d washed in some time. Before he’d said anything I took him inside, sat him down and started to run a hot bath. Whatever had happened, I told him, could wait until he’d gotten himself together. I think I had the right of it, as once he had cleaned himself up and had some hot food he seemed a lot more himself than he had been. Still, he spent a good ten minutes just sat there, staring into space.

I asked him what the matter was, whether he’d had an accident or lost his job or something. When I said that, he laughed an odd sort of laugh and said that he had lost his job. He’d quit, he said. I asked him why, after all he had always loved the whole business of skydiving, but as I said the word ‘sky’ I saw him flinch back like I had slapped him. So I quieted down and asked him to tell me what had happened.

They’d been running a dive up near Doncaster, he said. Some 85-year-old doing a tandem jump for charity in memory of his wife. He hadn’t been the one actually doing the jump with the old man, but it was a significant enough thing that his colleague had asked him to come up as well for support. He’d be coming down alone on a solo parachute. It all started well enough, the flight up was fine, and the old man, who said his name was Simon, appeared to be having a great time, making jokes, and quite frankly a lot more eager to throw himself out of a plane than almost anyone Robert had ever met before.

Finally the climb finished, and the door was opened to the rush of air. Harriet Fairchild, the instructor, readied herself to jump, with Simon strapped to her chest. It was at this moment, Robert said, that the old man turned to him, shouting something. He didn’t hear it clearly, but thought it had been “enjoy sky blue”. He’d felt dizzy all of a sudden, almost falling to the floor as Harriet hurled herself and her passenger out of the plane. It passed in a moment, though, and he pushed himself out of the door, and was greeted by that familiar plunging feeling in his stomach as he began his freefall.

He knew something was wrong almost immediately. He was jumping, he said, from about ten thousand feet, so should have been falling for almost thirty seconds before opening his parachute, but he was having trouble keeping count. The clear blue sky was so bright it seemed to blind him, and the numbers were all jumbled in his head. His balance seemed to be all turned around and he said he had had to shut his eyes tight against the brightness, concentrating to keep his count. Finally, he reached what he thought was thirty seconds, and went to pull his ripcord, but as he did, he said, he opened his eyes again and froze. The ground was gone.

I asked him what he meant, had he got turned around, maybe. He just shook his head, and told me again that the ground had gone. All that there was, he said, was that vast, empty blue sky, stretching off before him, but still he was falling into it. It was bright, he kept saying, it was so bright, although there was no sun in that sky and no clouds for it to hide behind. Just the empty, blue sky in all directions as he fell into it. He wanted to pull the ripcord, to unfurl his parachute, but his hand wouldn’t close over the grip. So he just fell.

Robert was shaking badly at this point, so I got him a blanket and made him another cup of tea. I wasn’t sure I believed all what he was saying, but he’d certainly been through something dreadful; I could see that. I asked him how long he’d been falling like that, and he said he didn’t know. His watch had stopped, but it had felt like hours. Days even. He had been so hungry, he said, but had just kept falling. He didn’t know which direction; there was just that empty sky all around, so it was impossible to tell.

Finally, he said, he saw the ground again. It didn’t feel like a change or a sudden difference, he just closed his eyes as he had so often in that place, and when he opened them it was there, green and sprawling and rushing up towards him. He’d been so relieved he’d almost forgotten to deploy his parachute. He did, though, and landed safely near the target area.

He was greeted by Harriet, who was surprised by how long it had taken him to get down. She told him it was almost fifteen minutes after when he should have hit the ground, and Simon, this old man, and his supporters had already left. It was obvious something was wrong, and Harriet asked Robert if he was alright. He repeated, “fifteen minutes, just fifteen”, and she told him “yes, what had been the problem?” Robert quit right there and then, and it was shortly after that he came to see me.

Now, obviously, I was a bit speechless at my son’s tale. It’s hard to say how much of it I thought to be true. I didn’t think he would ever have lied to me about something like this, but at the same time the sort of thing he described, well, I didn’t think it sounded like something from a healthy mind. Let’s just say I was thinking the sort of thing… you’ll be thinking in a few minutes. Point is, I tried to talk him through his problems and his feelings, but the more he talked about it, the more agitated he became, until at last I decided that we weren’t getting anywhere, and I got his old room ready for him. He slept soundly that night, as far as I remember.

The next morning was a beautiful day. The sun was streaming through the window, and the air was warm and still, without it being as hot as it had been the week before. When Robert finally woke up, I suggested that we go for a short walk to enjoy the day, and hopefully clear out any of that fear he felt that was still hovering about. He didn’t seem to want to go, at first, he kept glancing at the cloudless sky, but I promised him a picnic lunch and that seemed to convince him.

That last hour was one of the happiest I’d ever spent with my son. In the sunlight, the bags under his eyes seemed to disappear, and after a few minutes he even stopped glancing at the sky all the time. We walked along, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, and the world seemed to be alright.

There’s a hill near where I live. It’s a gentle, grassy slope but goes up quite high. You can see it from the kitchen window of my house. That’s one of the reasons I’m moving. It was that hill we were climbing when it happened. We had just reached the top, when Robert turned and to me with a sudden look of utter terror on his face. I asked him what was wrong; he just screamed and pushed me away. I fell hard onto the ground, and could do nothing but watch as my son ran off up the hill.

And then… And then… This is the part I can’t put into words. I’m going to try, but whatever you think of when you read this is not going to be what happened; it will just be the closest I can describe before thinking about it too much gives me a migraine. The closest I can say is this: the sky ate him.

He didn’t fall, or fly, or take-off. There wasn’t anything in the sky that took him. It wasn’t a hand that reached out and grabbed him, it was the sky itself, the whole sky, as far as the horizon I could see, that twisted around and moved like… like the shifting of sand. It ate Robert. That’s the only way I can describe it. Please don’t make me do so again.

Statement ends.

Before I address the question of 'whether the sky can eat people'. There are some facts that I can address. The company Ms Kelly states Robert works for never existed and according to Bad never had. There were one or two news article that reference events by the company "open skydiving" but whatever they were, they weren't officially licensed.

Either Robert was lying to his mother or they were lying to him. Not a lot of detail as given about the skydive where Robert Kelly claims to have been transported to an endless nothing, but Zak really outdid himself here. After spending almost a day going through reports in the Doncaster area foind one that seems relevant. On the 3rd of June 2002 Joseph Tuse reported hearing an impact in the field adjoining his house. What he found was a paraschute that had hit the ground at high speed, there was no sign of anybody wearing it and there was no logo either. The parachute was unopened.

Mrs Kelly attempted to report Robert missing but it proved difficult. For the 4 years prior its hard to find any evidence of Roberts existence at all. It may have been that he moved a lot but it feels like more than that.

One other thing bothers me, if Mrs Kelly's recollections are correct, regarding Roberts last skydrive. Harriet Fairchild, the instructor of an old man named Simon. It might be a coincidence but I recall the name Simon Fairchild was one of the ones used b- My god George! What the hell?! What are these things?!

<-Recording Ends->

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we get on to the first live statement (technically second but I removed the first one in the line as it isn't very much needed, she's the woman who sent a complaint to fundy) so thank you for anyone who's stuck around this long :)


	9. Colony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gogy

<-Recording Begins->

George, are you sure about this?

"I just want to make a statement about what happened to me, I mean, it's what we do"

No, what we do is look into statements usually by liars and the mentally ill.

"Well I need to tell someone what happened and you can vouch for the stability of my mind can't you?"

That isn't the point-

"It doesn't need to be an official statement I just want a record of it"

You're right I suppose-

Statement of George Davidson, archival assistant at The Magnus Institute, London. Regarding?

"A close encounter with something I believe used to be Sylvee."

Recording direct from subject, 12th March 2016.

Statement Begins.

"Well, a couple weeks ago you asked me to look into the statement about the spider that wouldn't go away, Carlos Vickeri. I knew there was something not right. Him dying and being encased in web when he was found. It wasn't anything to do with spiders though, quite glad about that. They're sca-"

Please stick to the statement George

" You asked me to look into the flat he lived in and I found it easily enough. Nobody answered so I figured there's nothing to do. I didn't wanna come back without information though you tend to get pouty like a puppy when you don't get i-"

George.

"You do! I did look around the place though, for windows or something that isn't locked. I found a basement window that was slightly ajar. I'm pretty small and I slip in through and I noticed something on the ground. I thought it was a screw at first but I saw a worm. An inch long, silver, black at one end. Like it was burnt. It began to twitch as I got closer and it started to writhe in this kinda eery way, it ran towards me and to be honest I freaked out a bit and stood on it.. 

A thick black slime oozed from where I stepped on it and I check around for any more, I continued down into the basement. The window was small, a tight area. I was small enough to fit through but I realised once I got through that it was only on ground level on the outside. I fall a bit onto the floor and had the creeping feeling that I'm too short and getting out might take a whi-"

Hah, shortie.

"Shut up Dream. I started to look around the room but most of the place was very dark. I realised I didn't have any torch and the lighting didn't work. The place had a bad feeling and I wanted to leave but i- I just- I was scared okay."

I- it's fine George you're okay now.

"Yeah. That was when I saw the stairs so I didn't waste any time heading up them. I found myself on the ground floor of the building and it was a relief. I couldve left but I decided to try again. The door was opened by an old woman in a head scarf, I tried to ask questions but it became clear she didn't know much English. She introduced me to the land lord, I told him what I was there for but not why, people tend to take our business negatively.

I asked if he remembered the time Carlos was a tenant. He seemed genuinely surprised to hear about the death and he couldn't shed much light, apparently Carlos was a shut in.

I went back to the institute and updated you on what I'd found and that was the last time I saw you before I dissappeared."

Yes, 2 or 3 weeks or absence wasn't it?

"Yeah I- yeah. As I was walking home I felt bad about the lack of information I could get you. I remembered the worm in the basement and had a sudden surge of energy to prove to you that I could be useful. I brung a torch and slipped in through the basement window a second time, I knew right then that I made a huge mistake.

The air was as musty as it'd been before but it seemed warmer, I turned on my torch and saw nothing. I thought the only interesting part about this was my possibility of getting arrested if I wasn't careful. Then I heard movement, from the other side of the basement.

It was faint, just a rustling, I didn't wanna check it out I really didn't. From all the statements I know that following the noise is always a really, really bad idea but, it's my job isn't it?"

George you didn't have to-

"I slowly moved towards it using my torch like a shield, it barely left a beam of light. The movement had stopped and I almost turned to leave before my torch fell across what looked like a human figure. It appeared to be a woman, staring at the wall. Her hair was long and black though it was so twisted and dirty it was hard to tell if black was its original colour.

She had a thread bare grey overcoat though beneath it her legs were bare. They were covered with what I first thought was spots. In her right hand she held a stained green handkerchief, she sat there, totally still. Either not noticing the torch light or not caring.

I didn't move a muscle. With a quick jerky movement she brought the handkerchief to her face and coughed, I say a cough but it didn't sound like a cough, it sounded like wet meat. I saw one of those, inch long, silver worms land on the floor. I, screamed, I'm quite ashamed to admit it but I did and I sorely wish I didn't. Her head snapped towards me and her pupils were ragged and collapsed. She smiled and her teeth were chipped and blackened.

I started to stagger backwards expecting her to race towards me but she simply smiled and let the overcoat fall to the floor. Her skin was pale, almsot grey and full of- sorry it still makes me sick- it was full of holes, deep black holes. Honeycombing every piece of flesh like a wasps nest, I could see those thin silver worms crawling in and out and their tips squishing as they crawled through- I mean it wasn't human- it can't have been.

She- IT, took a step towards me and as it did so the worms began to writhe out of every hole and fall over the hall in a cascading wave. I had the oddest thought then, I went to get my phone out, I wanted to take a picture of the thing- to prove to you that it happened! You're always so quick to dismiss these things and-"

George I'm not-

"I dropped it of course because I screamed as one of the worms jumped at me, that thing leapt literally 6 feet through the air at my face, it missed me but I dropped the phone and I fled up the stairs as fast as I could. The door was unlocked and if it hadn't been, I'm sure I'd be dead or- worse.

I ran faster than I ever have in my life, I didn't stop running until I was sat in the underground and in my house. I was starting to feel a bit safer, I knew I couldn't show up to work but without my phone I couldn't tell you that. I passed out on my bed but it was still dark when the knocking woke me up.

I dragged myself awake and the memory of the night all flashed back to me and I tried to rationalise it. Maybe I'd overreacted to a homeless woman who was sick and I'd cruelly left her to die. There was more knocking and as I flicked the light on, nothing happened. None of the electronics in my house worked. The knock came again, I shuffled towards the door and reached for the handle.

As I was about to open it I got the sudden thought of, 'what if she was outside, waiting'. I remembered the woman, Harriet Lee, bursting into worms. They could make me into that. I realised this woman must be Sylvee, the one you mentioned a few weeks back. I never had one of those pupils added so I couldn't see through the door but as I stepped back, a small silver looking worm crawled through the door.

I think I may have lost my mind a bit then. It all feels very strange, blurry, I remember stamping and stamping as more made there way under my doorway. I stuffed every hole where a worm could've came through and I sat there and waited. I had no way to communicate with anyone. This went on for 13 days. Every time I thought it'd be safe to leave I'd hear the knocking at my door, luckily my water still worked and the works never thought to come up through the pipes. I ate a lot of ready meals, cans that kinda things. If I ever see another can of peaches I will lose it.

The worst part may have been the boredom, I read the coding books I owned several times and I NEVER slept.  
I spent a lot of time trying to remember about Sylvee but all I remembered was that she called herself to be a "practicing witch" and infected by a dangerous parasite. She never talked to me. Never a sound, apart from that knocking, from what I saw in that throat there may not have been room for a voice. She never tried to break down the door she just knocked and knocked and knocked and knock-"

George it's okay.

"Yeah- yeah. This morning I didn't smell the scent she brung with her. No one was outside the door and I ran all the way here." 

Statemend ends. 

You're sure about this right George? 

"I'm not going to lie to you, I like my job. Most of the time." 

Very well, there's a room in the archives I used to sleep while working late, you should stay there for now. There's enough locks and it's well sealed, you'll be completely safe. 

"Oh- I- okay. To be honest I didn't expect you to take it seriously" 

You say you lost your phone two weeks ago? 

"Yes, in the basement" 

In that time I have received a lot of text messages saying you were ill with stomach problems, the last one saying you thought it 'might be a parasite'. If it involves Sylvee I take it very seri-

"What?" 

I just got another message, from you? 

'Keep him, we have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivists crimson fate arrives' 

"What does that mean?" 

I- I ask Fundy for more security. I'll warn Bad and Zak as well. I believe we should have a statement from Sylvee here somewhere. I'll look into it. 

Recording ends


	10. A Distortion

<-Recording Begins->

Are you sure youre alright to do this now?"

"No it's fine Dream, Skeppy is getting me coffee and I want it fresh in my mind. You didn't give George any time off when he had his experience" 

George had to start living in the archives and he wasnt injured. 

"It's just a scratch Dream, I'll be fine. Can we begin?" 

Okay. 

Statement of Darryl Novescosch, assistant archivist at The Magnus Institute, London. Regarding? 

"Let's just call it a series of Paranormal sightings" 

Statement recorded direct from subject 2nd of April, 2016.

"Im sure you know I was a bit suspicious about how dangerous Sylvee was when you asked George to stay in the archives. It's not like I didn't believe him but George doesn't have the best uh, self preservation insticts. I thought if Sylvee was as much of a danger as everyone thinks he'd almost certainly be dead. 

Don't get me wrong I've read all the same statements as you, I know she's killed a lot of people uh- 6 hospital staff when she was first admitted?"

6 from colonisation and 1 from a broken neck from her escape. 

"But that was 2 years ago and whatever she is now it sounded like she'd be degenerating. I wasn't sure how much damage she'd still be capable of. I didn't take as much care as I should have. 

I'm still not sure how much of a threat she is, I've seen plenty of the worms squirming around outside. What happened just makes things more complicated I suppose? I'll start with the first thing, I live up near a park and my building is old, victorian I think. It's been rebuilt and repaired its still got strange little quirks, one of which is the windows, they have slightly warped glass. Looking down on the streets below can be weird as the light comes in weird and distorts whatever is below it. 

I never payed much attention to it until the day before yesterday. I sometimes like to spend a few seconds looking at the people below, it's entertaining watching their bodies get all funky like a fun house mirror. But one morning one of the figures was- off. It looked too tall, the limbs and body were very thin and almost wavy, like they didn't have any bones in them. I couldn't make out a face but the hands were the most bizzare. 

They were almost the size as the rest of the torso, the fingers were long and stiff and ended in sharp points. It stood completely motionless and I could feel it staring at me, moving my head to the side I could see a tall man with short dark hair. Nothing about him seemed out of place but I took a note of him. I checked and once again the figure was still there. 

Now you know me Dream, I'm not exactly the bravest person in the world-"

You're plenty brave dude. 

"Thank you but the point is that I generally avoid horror and stay off roller coasters when I'm challenged to ride one. So I was surprised when this figure wasn't causing me much distress. The more I checked the more I was sure that this was definitely supernatural. I've always considered myself a skeptic so it's surprising how fast i accepted it all though it may just be because I enjoy trying to make sense out of the nonsense in the world. 

I headed down into the street and over to the flower shop at the other side and the woman working there was confused at my question of a man with short, black hair but said she had seen him. Sure enough a couple hours later I saw him in a cafe. I tend to pop in during breaks, I love the Institutes building of course, it's beautiful but from a money point of view I really wish it wasn't in a such an expensive area. 

It's a long walk but quite pretty and I grab coffee on the way, I noticed the guy in the corner of the shop. He wasn't looking at me this time and I almost went into to ask in a surge of bravery but decided getting to work was more important. Discarded it as chance. 

I don't know what I was planning to ask him but that doesn't matter now. When I arrived you were arguing with Skeppy about some, who's that architect he likes?"

Robert Smyrke.

"Yeah that's the one, I was starting to regret not talking to tall, dark and monster as I'm sure I wouldn't have missed much. It was a quiet day apart from when George thought he saw one of those worms and freaked out a little."

Yes, I remember.

"Cmon, It's not his fault he's being stalked by some weird living Hive."

I know but it would have to have been George, he doesn't really have any family to help him with this and I'm god awful when I try to comfort people. We're getting off topic, why didn't you report it?

"Really? It wasn't worth mentioning until I had more evidence, you would've torn that statement to shreds if it was from the public. Nothing else happened until I left work. I headed back up towards Victoria and I noticed the cafe was still open even though it was half an hour after they should've closes. No one was in the counter but there was one customer. He sat there, in the exact same position as this morning, it could've been the same coffee.

The street was empty but as I looked a car drove past, the window showing his weird distorted limbs. He was now looking at me, he gestured me towards him and I walked in. I don't know why I wasn't scared but I wasn't, I sat down and saw him properly and took in all his features. He had some facial hair, dark hair like I remember, except this time he had a headband held just above his eyes.

I asked him what he was, he laughed at this, it sounded unnatural. It sounded like a headache. He said it didn't matter what he was, he couldn't describe it anyways, the phrase he used. 'How would a melody describe itself when asked'. I told him if he was going to talk in cheap riddles I was going to leave.

He apologised and told me to call him Vincent, I didn't want to call him Vincent. It didn't fit somehow and the way he said it made me definitely think it was not his name. It wasn't like I had any other name for him, not him sorry, it. It sat there waiting for another question.

I asked what it wanted and it told me it wanted to help."

Help? With- what?

"That what I said. I asked if it wanted to stop Sylvee and it laughed that weird laugh again. Told me I had no idea what was really going on, it didn't have any intention of telling me though, it said it didn't care if I or my companions would live or die. That the Flesh Hive was always rash.

It said it wanted to be friends and put his hand in mine. It may have looked like a human hand but it was heavy, like a wet leather bag full of stone, sharp stone. I got up to leave and I was sick of this weird thing. It made no move to stop me but as I went to exit it asked if I was interested in saving your life it would be waiting at Hamwell Cemetery"

Sorry, saving my life?

"It called you by name, you and George, and Skeppy" 

Thats unsettling.

"It really was, I tried to ignore it and got as much sleep as I could. You may have noticed how tired I was what with Skeppys April fools joke and everything"

Dear god-

"I checked the cafe again and again but 'Vincent' wasn't there. I was going to come to you and I didn't know if you'd believe me or not but you definitely would've stopped me from going. The sun was starting to go down when I got there, the water reflected the sky.

I didn't have to go inside, Vincent was waiting by the gates and caught a glimpse of its reflection in one of the puddles. I was sure at this point that I was not safe.

I expected to go into the graveyard but instead Vincent started walking towards a row of houses, the sign said Azalea Close. Most were repaired except one at the end, it looked abandoned, maybe a pub.

Vincent went inside expecting me to follow so I did, it was dark and dusty and I was annoyed I hadn't brung a torch but enough of sunlight from the door came through. There was a fire extinguisher and a tool box on the table and it was definitely a bar.

I was about to ask Vincent what we were doing when I heard a wet, sqeualching noise. 

I walked towards the noise and saw the floor covered in pale worms. I heard George's statement and I was prepared but hearing about it doesn't prepare you for what you see. I expected to see Sylvee but what was there seemed to be once a man. The worms wriggled in and out through the holes in his skin, the flesh Hive, Vincent had called it.

The silver things formed clustered notes where his eyes used to be, I couldnt help it, I screamed. It was loud enough for the man to hear. Its head snapped around and a cascade of worms fell out and his mouth opened as he tried to scream but all that came out was the worms. They began to come towards me at an alarming speed but as I walked away I tripped and fell into the bar.

Vincent simply watched as I begged for help but its face was unreadable. There were too many to stomp on and I felt my hand rest on the fire extinguisher. I don't know what I was expecting but the gas seemed to stop their squirming until they were dead and I walked across the entire room and sprayed every single thing.

I was breathing heavily and the Co2 was making me feel lightheaded. I felt the need to check his pocket and I found a drivers license. Timothy Hodge, the man who's home was infected by the worms inside Harriet Lee I felt a pain in my arms and I looked up to see Vincent reaching into my shoulder, its fingers were long and distorted and they cut deep inside. I screamed. After a few seconds it withdrew its hand and a worm was in its grip, I hadn't even felt the thing burrowing into my arm.

I wandered away and Vincent or whatever it was, had gone, I found my way to the institute where I must've woken up George and, here we are."

I suppose we are

"What do you think?"

I uh- I don't really know. We can look into it more later on.

"I should quit yakno, we all should, I don't think this is a safe job"

You're probably right. Do you want to quit?

"No I just, I'm too damn curious I suppose. You?" 

I can't either, I feel the need to know.

Go get some rest.

"Thank you Dream, I love you."

"I love you too man, have a nice rest."

....

Statement ends.

There's nothing we can do to follow up Bads experience, if it was any of the others I'd have doubts but he's always been the most level headed. If its what he says happened I believe him. This explains Timothy Hodge and his dissapearence after his statement.

It seems odd that the effect of Sylvees infestation was different on him and Harriet Lee. The thing that most disquiets me about Bads statement is this "Vincent".

He seems convinced he was not human in usual sense but almost every relationship the supernatural has engaged with people in an antagonistic way. The idea that thungs out there want to help us, for some reason that makes me more uncomfortable than the worm infested things stalking the Institute.

I'm going to be asking Fundy for some more Co2 fire extinguishers around the archives. Hopefully, it'll be okay.

End recording.


	11. Skin Tight

<-Recording Begins->

Please state your name and your experience. 

"Into that? You're joking"

I assure you it'll record perfectly.

"I knew you guys were a bit old fashioned but that's ridiculous"

No doubt you're used to a better equipment when pretending to see ghosts in 'haunted' places.

"People like a show, people like our show. If we do add a bit of sparkle we are still more respected paranormal investigated than your lot"

We are not investigators, we are researches.

"Same thing man. The fact is we play it up a bit but that's because heat spikes aren't entertaining enough. We still only look into genuine cases. You take any ridiculous story, vampires, monsters under the bed and mind control? Who cares about evidence when you can tell your story to the Magnus Institute."

Yet you've come to make a statement.

"Well yeah but-"

Let me guess, none of your "respectable" group would believe you-

"Wilbur does take me s-"

Let me make it clear that chances are I won't take you very seriously either. But we will take your statement and we will look into it. Now, please state your name and the subject of your experience.

"My name is Dave B. I've got a YouTube channel called Technoblade which branches off to a series called Ghost Hunt UK."

Thank you. Your statement is regarding?

"What I saw at the abandoned Cambridge Military Hospital when filming in January 2015"

Recording 17th April 2016. Hold on, the military hospital? I thought the haunting there were very well documented why wouldn't they believe you?

"What I saw had nothing to do with the hospital."

Go on?

"We had been angling to film their for months, it's standard stuff, we spend some time analysing the data and-" 

Seeing ghosts?

"Sometimes sure we get evidence. We've been trying to go for month but apparently there's asbestos in the wall. However we're an indepedant show and it wouldn't be the first time we did something-"

Illegal?

"Unorthodox. Can it you dick. The worst that we've ever got before is a fine, the team going in was me, my cohost Andy Cain, Peter Warhol on sound and Antoni Salon on camera. Pete got uncomfortable on the idea of asbestos and backed out so we needed a new sound guy.

My friend Wilbur Soot, though you'd know him as Will Gold, he hosts the what the ghost podcast, knew someone. He'd had a sound engineer by the name of Sarah Baldwin helped him a couple times. Though Wilbur warned she was a little unsocial. I didn't think this mattered as we just needed a good sound engineer.

The night of the 12th rolled around and Antoni picked us up in her truck. We had to go get Sarah but when we pulled up the building was strange. The building was dark, it wasn't abandoned per say but I don't think anyone lived there. I rang on the door and I had no answer, I rang her and it went straight to voice mail before I got a call from an unknown number. She asked if we were outside and I said yeah before she ended the call.

We watched the door for 2 more minutes but nothing happened until we had a knock on the back of the van and standing there was Sarah. She was short with dark brown hair cropped close. She was wearing a grey t shirt with alight black jacket over the top which I thought was a bit off as it was the middle of January. It was a long way from t shirt weather but who was I to say. I introduced myself but she just nodded and headed inside, she lit a ciggarete and I was going to say we didn't want her to smoke in the van as I sometimes used it to drive Wilbur around and he hated the smell but she was already doing so and I gave up. 

The car ride was the longest 2 hours of my life, she worked hard to find the shortest answer to all our questions, she never stopped smoking so we had to ride with the windows open. There was an old smell that came from her, like sharp perfume. Antoni seemed a bit bothered too but neither of us said anything.

When we finally arrived at the building we parked a little bit away and I noticed that as we walked towards it Sarah was hanging back. I asked if she was okay and she responded 'You didn't tell me about this place.' with real anger in her voice. It was surprising, the first time she had emotion in her voice and it was about something that I had told her multiple times.

I asked if there was a problem but she lighted another ciggarete and started moving. Getting inside was no problem, a few of the boards covering the windows were already pried open and the ghost we were after was 'a grey lady'.

They're common ghosts, put in anywhere women had a duty. They are generally kind encounters and we were talking about whether to do a dramatic or an emotional episode. Throughout this entire discussion Sarah simply continued smoking, her gaze occasionally moving, like she was looking for something. She was freaking me out more than the place.

We recorded our walk around and started talking about the history of the place, make it educational y'know. There was the normal graffiti such as tags and names done by random teenagers who think they're brave but one stuck out. It was in the children's ward, over a mural of Winnie The Pooh.

Someone sprawled, 'Silk will not stitch the butchers meat'. It sounds childish but even the happy bear underneath it couldn't distract me from the horrible way that line rubbed me. We settled on the spooky angle.

We took it in shifts and while I was reluctant to give Sarah a shift, she offered to take the 2-4 am shift I couldn't deny as no one wants that one. I took midnight to 2 am and began my shift. Most of it was spent texting Wilbur, the only sign of any paranormal energy being a slight drop in temperature which we decided not to include in the final product.

At 2 am I went to wake Sarah, she hadn't been smoking for a while so the perfume smell was stronger than ever, I reached out to touch her on the shoulder when she suddenly turned around, there was no sign of fatigue in her eyes. It made me wonder of she was ever asleep before. I texted Wilbur goodnight and the last thing I heard was the click of Sarah's lighter.

I awoke an hour later to the lack of cigarette smell and no Sarah in sight. It was dark so I turned on a torch and checked the readings, the tempature had harshly dropped around 10 minutes ago. Another 10 minutes later I started to get worried. I should've woken the others but I didn't want to embarrass her if she had gone to the bathroom.

After another 5 minutes I decided to go look for her, I'm a pretty brave guy but God. I regret every looking. Everytime I turned a corner it seemed like there was something there just beyond the range of the camera I'd brung it with me incase any ghosts had appeared, silly idea I know, but I was still rationalising this all in my head.

I smelt something, not smoke or Sarah's weird perfume, copper. With another scent beneath it, acrid and sour. I'll admit now that I started to get scared, I didn't think about how great it would've been for our show now. I walked up the stairs to the upper floor and began to hear something, talking maybe.

It sounded like pleading. I crept towards it, a knife in hand that I had always brung with me and at the door I used the camera to see inside. Sarah was inside talking to absolutely nothing, I heard the words 'tresspass' and 'unintended' and whispered apologies but couldn't make out the rest. I almost called out to her when she stood upright, like she was struggling to breathe.

I heard an impact and Sarah was flung across the room and hit the wall, a crack came from it and a streak of blood came down. After a couple seconds she stood up and shouted something I couldn't understand, she removed her jacket and there was something very wrong with her left arm.

Bits of it seemed to be hanging off and she gripped it with her right hand and- well- this is where my colleagues had laughed me out. She peeled off the skin of her left arm. As if she was taking off a glove? I saw it stretch and come away from whatever was beneath, I couldn't see what was underneath but it was dark and shiny.

I will never forget the sound of the skin coming away from her arm. Once she took it off she stretched it then slipped it back over her hand. She reached into her bag and pulled out a staple gun, she slowly and deliberately stapled the skin down.

I finally ran. Like a coward. Sarah returned 15 minutes later and didn't seem to suspect anything. I lay awake the rest of that night, panicking to Wilbur. The journey back was silent. We dropped her off and we never saw her again.

In the end it was Antoni who didn't want to work with Sarah anymore, I agreed and the episode came out okay. Though I didn't include what I saw that night."

Interesting, you say you recorded a video of the event?

"Yeah, I gave your guys a copy but the video seems too distorted to even see anything."

Are you sure you weren't dreaming?

"Are you serious?"

I had to check every possibility, in your line or work you probably have an active imaginati-

"Great! Brilliant! I should've known this was a complete waste of my time"

I mean probably, any evidence you have is too corrupt. We will do what investigation we can but don't expect much.

"Well thank you oh so much." 

You're welcome.

Statement Ends.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

As I mentioned to Dave or 'Techno' there is little I can do with information follow ups. The hospital is being rebuilt as we speak and there are no records of ghosts that match the statements description of the manifestation.

We have been unable to track down Sarah Baldwin, the address Techno provided has not been inhabited for 6 months and does not list her as a tenant. We contacted Will Gold or 'Wilbur Soot' who had worked with Baldwin two times, having previously met her at a network event. Neither the phone number or email address listed works and I'd like to avoid having to ask Mr Gold for any more details about her.

Still, the name Sarah Baldwin is familiar to me, I'll go back over earlier files. The footage is definitely corrupted like she said and only one or two frames has good quality and it appears to be an empty hospital room and the only thing that differs is that there are 2 figures. One is kneeling and matches the description of Sarah Baldwin. The other is pointing.

It does not appear to be touching the ground. I'm going to go get something to eat with George I think, I can't remember when doing this was so tiring.

Recordings ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all the statements I had drafted done. If it's not too much to ask can anyone who's gotten this far comment please. I don't really know who's actually patient enough to get to this part pfffft


	12. The Hive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favourite statements from the entire show :)

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of- Sylvee. Regarding- a wasps nest in her attic. Original statement given February 23rd 2014, Audio recording by Clay @9#(#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins.

I itch all the time. Deep beneath my skin where the bone sits, I feel it. Something that wants to move, wants to writhe and wants to be free. It itches and I don't think i want it. I don't know what to do, you can't help me, I don't think so I think but whatever it is it hates you. It hates what you are and what you do and if it hates you, maybe you could help me?

If I wanted to be helped. I don't know if I do- you must understand it sings so sweetly and I need it but I am afraid. It isn't right and I need help, I need it to be seen, to be seen in the cold light of your eye. For the things that crawl and writhe in the Hive to be seen.

You can't see it of course its not real, not like you and I are anyways, it's more of an everywhere. Are you familiar with trypophobia? That disgusted fear of holes, honeycombed holes that make you feel that itch in the back of your mind, in your own brain rotten and hollow and swarming.

I'm sorry I know I'm meant to be telling you what happened what brought me to this place, this place that beholds all. I'm sorry, I will I just haven't slept in some time. I can't sleep. My dreams are crawling and burrowing and slithering but oh it is the burrowing that draws me. I always sing that song of flesh.

Forgive me for this story, forgive me for a great many things for I may do worse. I have this instinct that squirms in my body, there will be great violence done here. I bleed into that violence. As I watch you sitting there through the glass, do you know where you are. You called me 'dear'. 'Have a seat dear', 'you can write it down dear'. Can you truely know the danger you are in?

There is a wasps nest in my attic, it thrums with life and malice and I could see there for hours watching it thrum, I have done. It's what sings behind them. Sings that I am beautiful, sings that I am a home, that I can be fully consumed by what loves me.

I don't know how long it's been there, I don't even own the house I simply live there under the watch of an old man. I know it is not his either though. It has a thousand truer owners that shift and sing in the walls of the building.

He does not even know about the wasps nest, I wonder how long he has not known. Have you ever heard of the filarial worm? It grows and grows, it stops water moving round the human body, right? Makes limbs swell and sag with fluid. Now when I look at him, the voice sings of showing him what a real parasite can do.

How many months has it been like this? Was there a life before? I remember a life that was not itching, not fear, not nectar sweet song. I had a job, I sold crystals. We sold the stones to couples who had colour in there hair. Before I found the nest I remember a new man, his name was Phil and he would look at me so strangely. With sadness, such a deep sadness, once with fear.

That was when I still called myself a witch, I would spend my weekends at rituals. I wanted something beyond myself but I knew better as to not call out to well trodden gods. I wish deep inside below the itch, that those rituals were still my spiritual raptures. I have touched something now that none of teachings have prepared me for, it is not a god, if it is then it is a dead god.

Decayed and clammy corpse flesh, brimming with worms. When did I first hear it, it wasn't the nest I'm sure of that I never went in the attic, I spent a day sawing through the padlock and my hands were blistered, why would I have done that if I didn't know what I would find?

I had seen no waps, I know I hadn't there are no wasps in the nest. No, the nest does not sing to me it is simply the face. The face from honeycombed flesh and the nest is nothing but paper its the Hive but not all of the Hive oh no only a piece. The Hive is big and beautiful and I was merely an addition.

Maybe it was the spiders? I don't think so, webs have a song as well of course but it was not the song of a Hive. When did I first hear it, maybe when I was a child when a classmate told me a blackhead was a hole in my face that would open if I did not clean it? Was it last year, passing by a park as the worms all writhed to the surface. Perhaps I've always heard it. Perhaps the itch has always been the real me.

It was the happy smiling Sylvee who drank wine in the garden and called herself a witch. Maybe it was her who was the illusion that hides the sick, squirming reality of what I am. What we all are, to tell ourselves we are all not just warm sacks of meat and habitat for the billion crawling things that need a home, that love us in their way.

I try to clear my head, to try to clear my head, to remember- remember what I don't know. I was lonely before I know that. I used to have friends, I was abandoned I don't know why, the memories are a blur. I remember they called me 'toxic' I don't know what that was except that it was the reason I was so painfully lonely.

Was that it? Was I drawn simply by the prospect of being genuinely loved? A deeper, more primal love, love that consumes you in all ways. You can't help me. I'm sure of that now, I've tried to write it down but now I stare at it but not a word of it was even enough to describe how I itch.

No word will ever stretch enough to describe the feeling that I feel deep in my bones. What possible cause for me could there be in your books and libraries aside from your useless books. I see now why the Hive hates you.

You can see it and log it and note its every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your words have no right to do so. I do not know why the Hive chose me but it did, I think that it always had. The song is loud and beautiful and I am so very afraid. There is a wasps nest in my attic, perhaps it can soothe my itching soul.

S-statement Ends.

This is uh- excuse me reading that was um- while I am pleased that we have found the statement that Sylvee gave the institute but it answers no questions.

Save for a snapshot of her mental condition before her admition. We were already aware of her religious history and her breakdown over an ant infestation that apparently led to her termination of her work.

The wasps nest is interesting, the police and paramedics report that when they responded to reports of screaming at Sylvees apartment. They found her in the loft, passed out, her forearm buried up the elbow in pulped organic matter. No nearby residents had reported to have seen any wasps in the area though.

No further investigation was carried though as later that night there was a fire. It killed the landlord Arthur Nolan. The service decreed that he had fallen asleep with a lot cigarette due to the fact he was found sitting in an arm chair with no sign be tried to escape.

Sylvee was admitted to the emergency department but she was already showing signs of the infestation that would describe her future appearances. 6 hospital staff attempted to treat her when many of the worms were finally expelled through her body.

They quickly burrowed through the medical personal; eyes, tongue, etc. Into the brain, killing them after roughly a minute and a half. She then walked calmly out of the door in A&E, a nurse attempted to run but in his panic fell and broke his neck on the stairs.

Then she was gone.

The Institute was consulted as apparently she claimed she was being possessed during her admition but our involvement was dropped. Still, anyone who's familiarised herself with the file could tell you this, we still don't have any evidence that Sylvee is paranormal.

It could just be an unknown aggressive parasite, there are weird things out there that are perfectly natural.

It's not though.

I know it's not natural.

Somehow I- I feel it, I'm sorry my detachment seems to have fled me, something got to me a bit.

I'm going to talk to George. 

End recording.


	13. #33 to #37

<-Recording Begins->

This is Clay @9£(#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute compiling notes and recordings to look over my list of jobs and statements to look into. File begins.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Look, Zak, Id love to discuss this further but I have a recording. 

"We just need to do a few again bud."

Out of the question. 

"It's confusing if not. Like the garbage one, you said Alan Parfit was reported missing in August 2009 which should actually be 6 months after the statement was given."

It should've been 2008, I mispoke an 8 as a 9 what does it matter?

"Someone noticed, a student using our sources for a dissitation. Here with Julia Montauks statement, you refer to case #9220611 as case #1106922. Oh and don't get me started on the numbers with the Hilltop hauntings. I don't wanna be mean dude but I'm tired of getting yelled at by Fundy yakno."

Who honestly cares if I mispoke it, another student?

"Um, yes, Samantha Emery. She's doing a PHD in manifestations and-"

I don't care. It's enough that Grian left us with a horribly organised filing system and half the time she doesn't even stay consistent. 

"To be honest with you I don't really understand the system?"

The last 3 digits of the year then the day and then the month. I don't know why she did it like that but j can't change it now.

"Oh! Okay, what happens if more than one statement happens on the same day"

I- don't know? Anything else?

"No but I did notice you kept mis saying Abrauks wife's name as Clara and Carla and its confusing me just a smidg-"

I'm not re recoding them. I don't have time. I have to keep this stupid recorder on my person incase I manage to find a file too stubborn to work on anything else and I have to goddamn read it o-

"Dude, dude. Its chill"

Sorry I just, haven't been sleeping much. With the Sylvee business. 

"Oh uh yeah i- it's getting bad. What do you want me to do about these errors?"

I don't care. If you'll excuse me now. 

"Oh, sure."

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begisn->

That was the first 3 minutes on my tape with the statement of Carlita Sloane, regarding a work on a container ship. The original statement was January the 2nd, 2011. The statement regarded her encounter with one Peter Lukas and the strange occurances of being rowed out to sea while all the sailors sat there silently for hours. When returning a crew member had gone missing and she was told to "be lucky he didn't pick you" in referral to Peter Lukas and whatever he did. I did put the post it notes on those cases eventually and I will be looking into case numbers that are on the same day and find a way to seperate them in some way. Next is the supplement for case #36 regarding the Ivy Meadows Care home. 

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Ivy Meadows Care home was decommissioned in July 2011, a month before the first of these alleged calls. It burnt down after a leaking gas maime met a flame and caused a huge fire. If the gas was already leaking it would explain hallucinations or other problems during their initial visit. There is no record of the body of Gertrude Miller.

Based on this statement that's not neccesarily an important point and he was a resident but according to the record he died on the 19th of July, a week before the home was decommissioned. It seems the record are, according to Bad, very patchy. At last official count the home held 29. The others were lost somewhere. 

George's research indicates the place employed a large number of carers but none can be found except for Hannah Remirez who had known nothing about the fire after she moved to Brighton. John Amhurt as best we can tell doesn't exist. Another tale of dead ends. We did contact the Baxters. 

All 3 siblings seemed to support this case. There is a lot here that puts me in mind. Something about the way Miss Baxter talks about way. It reminds me of statement #0142302 how Sylvee talks about her own fears. The old man and his companion, it reminds me of someone.

If he wasn't dead I'd assume it was Trevor Herb- Oh uh yes? 

"Are you free?"

Oh yes I'm just about finished here. What do you need Zak?

"Nothing urgent but Fundy was asking about the delivery"

Delivery? What delivery?

"That's what he was asking. George took a delivery of a couple of items addressed to you. Did he not mention it?"

Uh no he- oh yes actually I completely forgot. Said he put it in my drawer.

"What is it?"

A lighter? An old zippo?

"You smoke?"

No!

"Is there anything unusual about it?"

Not really, sort of spider Web design on the front. Doesn't mean anything to me. You?

"Nope"

Huh. What was the other thing?

"Oh uh yes, sent straight to the artifect storage. A table, old, quite pretty though. Fascinating design on it."

Zak? Uh, Zak, it doesn't have a hole in it does it? About 6 inches? 

"To be honest I didn't really notice it was quite-"

Hypnotic? Yes. Do you know who made the delivery?

"Uh no"

I'll have to talk to George. 

End Recording. 

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

I found out from George the delivery was made by a company called Breekon and Hope. Funny thing is that I swear I've heard the name before. Who knows though. In reference to the table, I think it is definitely the one mentioned in case #0070107. I don't know yet what this means.

End recording.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just the important parts of the statements that I didn't want to include. Aside from a brief description of #33 Boatswains Call. The next 3 chapters will be the final ones of S1 in the Magnus Archives.


	14. Lost and Found

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Andre Romaeo, regarding a series of misplaced objects lost over the course of 3 months. Original statement given June 6th 2002, audio recording by Clay @=£(#=, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins.

Thank you for lending me your pen. I thanked you when you handed it to me, but I don’t know if you’ll remember. I wonder, will you… forget you lent it to me and believe that it was my pen all along? Maybe instead you’ll forget that I ever had one to begin with, and think of me as an idiot who turned up to give a statement without a pen, so you had to lend me yours. My own fault for putting it down, really. Assuming I did ever have one. I’ll try to keep a slightly closer hold on this one.

I’ve been in the antiques business for a long time. It’s not what it used to be. Haha I’m sorry, I know. I always did that, try to make myself feel more comfortable with jokes. There’s a follow up to that one, you know. Something along the lines of the joke being so old only an antiques dealer would be able to sell it. I love that one; I think it’s clever, but in my whole life it’s only ever gotten a laugh once. That’s why I remember buying the vase so clearly. I remember that the seller laughed.

In the old days, I never would have considered buying wares from the likes of Mikaele Salesa. He has a good reputation for quality, but a… bad reputation for legality, as it were. I’ve had more than one acquaintance sell on a particularly valuable find they got from him, only to discover that it didn’t have proper import papers, or that it had been reported stolen years before. Charlie Miller even did some jail time over a Georgian brooch he bought off him, so as a general rule I’d have given Salesa’s stuff a wide berth, but… Well, the antiques business isn’t what it used to be. That isn’t a joke. I had to close up my shop a few years ago, you see. Actual antiques don’t sell to the mass market anymore. Oh, young people will snap up vintage clothes or have any number of cheap faux-antique replicas strewn about their living rooms, but as soon as they get a look at the price tag for the real thing? They’re out of there like a shot.

So I went the same way as a lot of my peers. Lose the premises, start selling only high-margin goods direct to specific clients who can afford them, or shift a few guaranteed sellers on the auction. It’s the only real way to stay afloat in the business nowadays, but the competition is intense, and getting the calibre of artefact you need has become a more cutthroat affair. I’m not the only one in the business to recently soften their attitude towards buying from people like Mikaele Salesa.

It was my first meeting with him, back in March, and I was nervous, so I told my joke. Just off-hand, almost a reflex. I didn’t expect any reaction, really, I… I certainly didn’t expect him to laugh. But he did, this sudden, deep, throaty laugh that seemed to come out of nowhere. He didn’t say anything afterwards, just continued discussing business. But it stayed with me. There was nothing particularly strange about the laugh, not really. Why do I remember it so clearly?

Salesa was taking me through his ‘showroom’. There was a fancy-looking sign above the door, but it didn’t do much to hide the fact that it was basically a warehouse. More of the antiques were still in their packing crates, and I couldn’t help making a note of how quick and easy it would be for him to pack everything down and disappear if he needed to. Still, I’d made a few good purchases already and was cautiously optimistic. I’d bought a pair of cavalry sabres from the Revolutionary War, absolutely excellent condition, and a British artilleryman’s tunic from World War I, a few other bits and pieces as well. I recall I felt a moment of relief that I didn’t deal in books, as I caught sight of several crates packed to the brim with heavy-looking volumes. I was looking for something big, though. Something that would make an actual dent in the mountain of debt I’d been piling up.

I found it in that old Chinese pot. From the Jiajing period, so Salesa said, and the construction seemed to back him up. The glaze and the workmanship fitted with mid-to-late Ming dynasty, but there was something… off about the actual design. Instead of the pictures or scenes common to the ceramics of the period, the blue glaze was painted on in crisp, thin geometric lines. They repeated perfectly and seemed to get smaller and more intricate the closer I looked, but the shapes they formed never lost any of the precision, seeming to continue on however closely I looked. The effect was disorientating, and made the vase seem smaller than it actually was. It made my head hurt a bit when I looked at it for too long. It was amazing.

When he saw me staring, Salesa clapped me on the back and named a price that almost made me choke. We haggled a bit, and eventually reached a price I considered only a little bit unreasonable. I hurried my purchases home, feeling slightly soiled by my visit to the warehouse, and very much hoping it would be a good few months, if not years, before I was in such dire straits that I needed to go again. I got home, had a shower and some food and immediately started to look into finding a buyer for my latest acquisitions. I remember I was planning to make a few calls, but my headache got so bad that I had to have an early night.

The problems started soon after. It was little things at first. Like my shoes. I’m not a particularly fashion-conscious man at the best of times, so I have three pairs of shoes. Comfortable loafers for everyday use, a pair of walking boots for hiking, and some well-shined, polished, leather brogues for fancier events. Well, I had a rather upmarket auction that I needed to attend, so I went to put on my nice shoes, but they were nowhere to be found. Not the shoes, not the box I kept them in. Instead there was a bag containing two shirts that I know for a fact I threw away the year before. When I asked my husband, David, about it, he told me point blank that I had never had any such shoes. Claimed I always wore my loafers when I went to auctions or parties.

I know that compared to some of the ghost stories you must hear in this place, a pair of misplaced shoes seems perfectly trivial, but something felt so… wrong about the whole situation. In the end I did go in my loafers. I don’t remember if anyone at the auction noticed.

It was about a week later that I got the invoice from Salesa. It was a pleasant surprise, far less than I thought we’d agreed on. That feeling lasted until I looked through the itemised list and realised why the cost was so low. He hadn’t charged me for the Ming. I’ll admit that I was somewhat conflicted over whether to raise the issue, but in the end I decided that even if Mikaele Salesa did work with thieves, I was not going to be counted among them. So I phoned him to try and explain the mistake.

He seemed to be in a fine mood when he answered the phone, and asked me if I’d had a chance to try out the sabres yet, which I’m pretty sure was a joke. I told him that there was an item he’d missed off the invoice, and he said that no, everything had been double-checked and was correct. I was getting suspicious at this point, and thought he might be trying to pull a fast one of some sort with me, maybe get me to take the blame for some illicit scheme gone wrong. I told him so in no uncertain terms, and described our encounter and the vase in minute detail. He was quiet for a few seconds, and then asked me if I could send him a photo of the pot. His tone was different, and he sounded oddly wary when he made the request. I was very on edge by this point, but could come up with no good reason not to agree, so I took a few pictures with my phone and sent them through to him.

It was a long time before he spoke again, and when he did he sounded… different. Almost scared, I thought. He told me that I could keep it. No charge. I began to protest again, but he ignored it. I remember his exact words: “I do not remember having that thing, which means it belongs to you.” Then he hung up.

This was all very strange, of course, but even then I wasn’t worried. Not like I should have been.

It was my book next. A signed copy of Catch-22, my favourite book. Vanished from its place on my bookshelf, leaving only an empty space behind. David just gave me another blank stare when I asked him about it. I admit I almost lost it at him then. Shoes were one thing, but that book meant a lot to me. I accused him of playing some stupid joke, and tried to remind him what I’d gone through to get it, flying over to America for Joseph Heller’s last book tour, queuing for hours and then that dreadful evening I thought that sudden rainstorm had ruined it all. By the end he was looking… very alarmed indeed and started to ask me how I was feeling. He wanted to know if I’d been under a lot of stress at work, if there was anything I wanted to talk about. I left.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I am crazy. It makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it? It would make it neat. Except no. No, I would need to have gone mad a long, long time before this for the idea of it being in my head to hold up. My perceptions are the only ones I can trust. Maybe. I don’t know.

This went on for months. The tie I got for my last birthday, my grandfather’s teapot, the tunic I bought from Salesa, things just kept going missing, and every time David would tell me that whatever it was didn’t exist. Or it wasn’t mine. Or I was misremembering. For a while I thought he was actually trying to gaslight me, make me think I was losing my mind, but when the tunic went missing, I called Salesa again. This time he laughed when he told me that he didn’t remember selling any World War I items to me on my visit. I checked the invoice, and it was no longer listed there. Just empty, accusing paper where the words had been.

I know these things were real. I know they existed. Why won’t anyone just believe me?

This is where I started to come undone a bit. To be honest, I don’t think anyone would do much better in my situation. I hadn’t made any connection between the old Chinese pot and the disappearances. I mean, why would I? But I also hadn’t been able to sell it. Whenever I tried, something would get in the way. The other person would forget to send through a crucial email, or they’d stop responding. Once I managed to get it as far as posting it out to a buyer, but it was returned immediately with a note asking why it had been sent to her. Gradually, I began to get suspicious of the thing. Sitting there, with its cascading, maddening patterns in that vile cobalt blue. Trying to tell me that I things didn’t exist, that they hadn’t vanished when I know they have.

I took to watching it. I wasn’t getting much sleep and David was worried sick about me. I know he was talking to various doctors about getting me help. There were certainly a couple of points I was worried about him having me sectioned. None of it helps in the end.

It was about a month ago. I had placed the vase in the centre of the table, and was sat staring at it. Keeping an eye on it. Checking for… god knows what. This had been my ritual for the previous week, keeping my vigil into the small hours, but that night… that night I fell asleep in front of it. I don’t remember my dream. Running, maybe? I know I woke with a start sometime around 2 in the morning.

As I tried to rub the sleep from my eyes, I heard a sound from the table in front of me. It was the dull thump of a heavy book hitting the tabletop. I looked and, sure enough, there was my copy of Catch-22, just lying there in front of that strange ceramic thing. And not just my book, there was a small pile of objects around the base. My shoes, a tie, things I don’t even remember losing. One by one they rose up out of the mouth of the vase and tumbled to the table. It didn’t matter how big they were, they all seemed to fit.

And then came the moment when everything had been disgorged. I saw all the things that I had lost, and I thought it must be over. It must be done. What else could possibly come of there? And I saw the pale shapes of long, thin fingertips begin to creep above the lip of the pot. I remember thinking that it couldn’t be a normal person living in that pot, because the fingernails were too dirty. Isn’t that an odd thing to think at a time like that?

I ran, of course. Turned around and sprinted out of the door and into the street and didn’t return until morning. Maybe I should have called the police, but I was in no state to do much of anything except shiver under a tree for hours. David was gone. I allowed myself some brief hope that maybe he’d just left me, maybe he’d escape with just a divorce. But no. One call to the housing association confirmed that, as far as they were concerned, I’d always lived alone.

I want to smash that thing. I want to dash its maddening patterns to the ground and stomp on it until there is nothing left but powder. But it’s also disappeared, of course. I can’t find it anywhere. It’s still taking things, though. Sorry about your pen.

Statement Ends.

Before I dig too deeply into the statement I feel I should mention something. Zak actually managed to find a copy of Romaeos marriage license. It is dated and official but half of it is blank. If it wasn't for the context of this statement it appears he was married to nobody.

This is not the first time Mikaele Salesas name has come to the Institute. He appears to have a knack for locating objects with supernatural properties. I believe some of the more bizzare things in Artifact storage came from him. It has been something of a-

Eugh, ew

I see y-

-Bookshelf collapses-

"Clay, are you alright?"

Ah- yeah sorry it was a spider

"A spider?"

Yeah I tried to kill it the shelf collapsed.

"Did ya kill it?"

Yeah I think so, nasty looking thing.

"Well I won't tell George"

God, I don't think I could stand another lecture on their importance to the eco system-

"Look."

Oh- a dent in the walls?

"No, it goes right through, I thought this was an exterior board"

It should be?

"Do you see anything?"

No I don't think so i-

-Squirming noises-

Bad run.

"What?"

Run!

<-Recording Ends->

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, the homophobic pot. Next is pt 1 of the season 1 finale :). Hope yall excited


	15. Infestation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clay-No speech marks  
> George-G  
> Darryl/BBH-B  
> Skeppy/Zak-Z (for Sapnaps later appearance)  
> Fundy-F

<-Recording Begins->

"Oh Christ!"-G

George! Shut up and get the extinguishers!

"What?"-G

The Co2, get the goddamn Co2 now!

"Oh god there's too many."-G

"Just keep spraying!"-B

We need to run. 

"Do you see Sylvee? Clay? Clay?"-B

"I've used all the Co2 Dream."-G

Look out! 

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Jesus! 

"Did ya get it?"-G

"There! I just wanna point out I didn't make this much of a fuss Clay."-B

Your removal was substantially cleaner Bad. 

"I'm still not sure why you have this George? Drinking in the archives?"-B

"No it's for the worms, I used to carry a knife but I figured that the corkscrew would get them out cause they burrow slow in a straight line"-G

...

"Look you guys got to go home everyday I didn't, I've been thinking about this for a long time!"-G

Well, thank you. 

"O-oh"-G

"That's why we're here?"-B

"Yeah, the rooms sealed, I checked it myself"-G

Strong doors, soundproof. These old files were more protected than we were. I grant you it's a good place but we're stuck here. 

"Ah- yeah- sorry"-G

...

"Why record it?"-B

What?

"It was stupid going for the tape recorded like that, and then you dropped it in the hallway"-B

I said I was sorry, if I'd known George had another one I wouldn't have bothered.

"It's fine I just thought you hated the thing"-B

I don't wanna become a mystery, I refuse to become a goddamn mystery.

"Language!"-B

Look even if you ignore the walking soil bag out there and the fact we are minutes from death. Every real statement leads deeper into something I don't even know the shape of yet. I still don't know what happened to Grian, officially he's still missing and the wait to call him dead is a formality. If I die, worm food or something else, I'm going to make sure the damn same doesn't happen to me.

Whoever takes over will know exactly what happened.

"Won't that put them off?"-B

Hahaaha- I hope so, only an idiot would keep the job.

"Wouldn't that make you an idiot Dream-"-G

Yes, George, that was my point.

"What can you see out there?"-B

"Nothing much, the worms have backed off a bit. The tape recorded is on the floor and no sign of Sylvee. It looks like they're waiting. Tim maybe?"-G

"Oh god he went on a lunch break oh god no he-"-B

There's no signal we have to hope he hears the noise.

...

"Clay, what did you mean by real statements?"-B

The ones that have weird wrinkles, they seem solid and they all have one thing in common.

"They don't record digitally?"

We have to use the tape recorded. I've only got about 38 statements recorded so far and we-

"Oh I see him"-G

Huh?

"Zak"-G

Zak.

"Oh god he doesn't know he-"-B

It's soundproof he can't hear us!

"Oh god there she is"-G

"Oh screw this!"-B

Darryl no!

Watch out for the tap-

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

"Test, test, whatcha doing on the floor? Eheh, statement of Joe Spooky regarding sinister happenings in the downtown ol-"-Z

"Zak look out!"-B

"Bad? Wha- oh."

Do yOu heAr thEiR soNg?

"Zak!"-B

-Recorder falls-

-Bad breathes heavily and door clicks shut-

"Damnit."-B

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Right, there we go, George what do you see?

"What?"

I can't really stand up right now, can you describe what's going on.

"Uh, Bad tackled Skeppy and there was a struggle but he made it out and into the street."

Did it look like any worms got him?"

"Uh, no. Skeppy either I think. It's hard to tell"

Stay with it George. Zak, what happened to Zak.

"Skeppy got split up and ran into the office, that's where the hole was from so uh he's dead, ahah, he's dead. Covered in worms-"

We don't know that.

"Maybe he found the spare Co2"

Spare? I never saw any?

"I hid them in old case files"

Oh, god! George you're a genius!

"Oh- I thank you. I wanted to hide them from the worms"

They're just normal worms George. They're unthinking infectio-

"Why do you do this?!" 

Do what? 

"Push the skeptic thing so far? It makes sense but now? After everything you've seen and read? You dismiss all the statements like there's nothing when half of the rational explanations that you give make less sense! For god sake Dream we are hiding from a worm queen thing, how could you possibly still not believe?!"

Of course I believe! Have you seen artifect storage, anything in there can convince anyone but even before that i- why do you think I started working here? 

It's hardly glamorous, I have always believed. Within reason I mean. I still think most of the statements are fake of the hundreds I've recorded only 30 or 40 go on tape. Now those, I believe. 

"Then wh-" 

Because I'm scared George! Because when I record these statements I feel something watching me, I lose myself a bit, when I come back its like- like if I admit there'd be any truth to it, whatevers watching will know.

Still, not my fault we're going to be eaten by worms. How many?

"Too many. More coming up from the floor. I didn't think they could get through?"

Sylvee?

"There she is"

What's she doing?

"I don't know she's messing with the boxes. She's destroying the statements sort of?"

Sort of?

"I think she's burning them"

Right.

...

Why are you here George?

"Well Sylvee is out there and i-"

I mean in the archive, why haven't you quit?

"Are you giving me my review now dude?"

No! We're clearly doing a whole uh- emotional thingy.

"Heart to heart?"

Yeah, sure I, yeah. Plus it's been bothering me. You've been living here for 4 months, sleeping with a fire extinguisher and a corkscrew. You must be aware that's not normal for an archiving job?

"I don't know. I just am. I've typed up a few resignation letters but I just couldn't bring myself to hand them in. I'm trapped here. It's like I can't move in and the more I struggle the more I'm stuck."

George.

You're not uh-

You didn't die here with you?

"What?!"

Well I just- the way you phrased tha-

"Did you think I was a ghost, moron?!"

No its-

"It's whatever Web these statements have caught you in its- I'm there too. We all are."

...

"A ghost really?"

Shut up George.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

"Right tell me again"-F

"Youre kidding?"-B

"You did bring a tape recorded I thought Clay would appreciate a record. For the record"-F

"For the record if we don't do something now he's dead. These worms have been terrorising us for months!"-B

"To be honest I thought they were overreacting"-F

"Look, Fundy, I don't know what you think is going on but I have just seen thousands of flesh worms pouring out of the wall. Tim might be dead and the others are-"-B

"The fire alarm was a good move but we will have to deal with them ourselv-"-F

"There's too many!"-B

"Not what I meant, by Clays insistence I changed to Co2 in the fire sprinklers."-F

"Can we set them off manually? I think Clays got a lighter?"-B

"Oh god he's not smoking again is he? It shouldn't be neccesary there's a manual release"-F

"Will it hurt George or Clay?"-B

"Almost certainly, I'm not a doctor but I know dumping a lot of Co2 on people isn't a good idea. I don't want to find an archivist so quickly after Gria-"-F

"What is wrong with you?! Whatever let's go"-B

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

-Banging-

"I thought that wall was supposed to be solid?!"

So did I! We don't have any weapon do I?

"Well we could-"

Don't say the corkscrew! How many are there?

"I don't know I can't see the window is covered in wor-"

I know I know! Well George I think this may be goodb-

-Window Smashing-

"Hey guys!"-Z

"Skeppy?"-G

Zak? I thought you were dea-

"Funny story really, I ran into the office, horrible death and everything! Tripped and fell in some boxes and there were like 20 cans of gas in there!"-Z

"Are you alri-"-G

You don't seem-

"Gas, gas, feel lightheaded! C'mon into the tunnels"-Z

I-into the tunnels?

"Yeah! Not that many worms in there anymore although the ones down here are faster and quieter for some reason"-Z

You're not bitten are you?

"Oh, I don't think so, have a look?"-Z

Yes, alright Zak put them back on please-

"Can you walk Clay?"-G

I think I can limp, George can you grab the tape recorder?

"Sure"-G

"Why do you have a second tape recorder George?"-Z

"Oh um, w-well I've been using it to record myself. I write poetry and I think the tapes have a sort of- lofi charm?"

...

...

I see.

<-Recording Begins->

<-Recording Begins->

"Okay Clay, I know you'll want to know what's been happening. If you're still alive. The worms are on the upper floor. I set the fire alarm off so everyone's evacuated except me and Fundy.

I don't know if the fire brigade are here but I haven't been near a window. It was a wave of worms, I got cut off from Fundy. I hope he made it to the system but who knows? Maybe everyones dead already.

I had to retreat into artifect storage. That should tell you something about how bad it is out there. God I hate this place. Did I ever tell you I first joined the institute as a practical researcher.

They made me look into everything in here. Take notes on the dreams the iron chair gave me, correlate the nightmares. I transfered after 3 months, would've quit but couldn't afford to back then. Never understood why they kept this stuff a secret. There's enough in here to send any skeptic packing but it's all locked away.

I asked Fundy about it once but he just muttered something once about funding. He's good at changing the subject isn't he.

No worms though, that's good. Oh hey I found the table you were talking about. Don't really see what all the fuss is about? Just a basic optical illusion, never special just- just a-"

-Static picks up-

"Wait- Clay, I think there's someone here. Hello? I see you! Show yourself!"

-Static Intensifies-

"Wait- don't!"

-Screaming-

-Static Decreases-

"Hello? Hello? I see you.

I see you."

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

I don't know how long we've been down in these tunnels. They're a maze. We don't know where we are, George is gone and Zak was right about being fewer worms in here but they are much faster and aggressive.

"George ran off during an encounter, I think he thought we were behind him"

He didn't think at all, Zak was with me and my leg slowed me down. We lost him. Zak has managed to find what looks to be a trap door so we won't have to get through any dry wall. I'm recording this incase-

"Incase it leads open to the archives and Sylvee is there to kill us."

In as many words yes.

Zak?

"Alright"

-Door Opens-

-Police Sirens-

ArChiVisT

Shit-

<-Recording Ends->

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The text with capital and lowercase letters was Sylvees, I don't wish to use speech marks for reasons that will be said later on :)


	16. Human Remains

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of uh-

"Clay. As your boss I'm telling you to go home. You look like a mummy"

The dudes in the hazmat suits said I was perfectly fine. Not a hole in sight. It's just pain.

"The paramedics said you and Zaks lungs need fresh air."

There's plenty down here.

"A basement filled with a thousand worm carcasses? What are you a sad 21 year old coding Minecraft videos? Surely we can do this in my office?"

I need to be here, keep watch, I need to be su-

"Clay. She's gone. I watched her body burn. Sylvee is dead. You can relax."

You know I can't. You know what George fou-

"That's a matter for the police."

Fine I'll go home as soon as I have everyone's statement.

"Fine."

Statement of Floris Fundy, Head of The Magnus Institute, regarding the infestation by the entity formerly known as Sylvee. Statement recorded direct from subject 29th July 2016. Whenever you're ready.

"There isn't a lot to tell for my part. I was in my office going over budgets in my office when the fire alarm went off. It was annoying but not too worrying, I packed my work away and went to leave when Darryl ran towards me babbling about worms and clutching a tape recorded.

He told me he set off the fire alarm and that you, George and Zak were trapped by Sylvee. This got my attention and I suspected he turned the tape recorder on so this wouldn't be neccesary. Did you not get it?"

No, there was some sort of problem, Darryl told me the tape was lost.

"Hm. Well I explained to him about the fire suppression system. We went to activate it manually and as we hurried down and we reached the ground floor when. Look, I know I've been dismissive of your concerns and infact I was ready to raise the issue of George living in the basement especially since he has- I believe he has been stealing fire extinguis-"

George wouldn't do that.

"I didn't fully appreciate what you've been talking about until I turned and saw a tidal wave of filth. I admit I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I didn't pay attention to Darryl when I ran and we got seperated. I composed myself and got to the boiler room.

It took me 10 minutes maybe 15 to get to the room. I do apologise it took me so long about how to work the Co2 system if I had been quicker I-"

It's fine. We're alive.

"Ehe, yes we are."

What?

"I turned on the fire suppression system and thats when I heard the scream. I'm sure you remember it better."

The last thing I heard before passing out. Tens and thousands of mouths screaming as one.

"Horrible sound. I called the fire department and when the gas had dissipated I headed down to see what had happened. Darryl was already there but you and Zak were in bad shape."

I remember everything else. When did George get back?

"An hour after they took you and Zak away. They were prepping Sylvees body for disposal when George burst out of the trapdoor screaming about finding a body."

-Static picks up-

Tell me what happened to Charles Batchelor.

"We've been over this-"

-Static drops-

We've never got it on tape.

"We'll do this tomorrow?"

Fine.

"On the 15th of March last year I went down to the archives and Grian wasn't there but his desk was covered in blood. I called the police and there was a search but no sign of him, alive or dead. No one saw or heard anything.

They judged there to be more than a gallon of blood spilt. More than the human body could lose and survive. I assumed he was dead and left the investigation before appointing you. George finding his body in the tunnels is a mystery to me."

Right. Thank you Fundy.

Statement ends. Can you send in Zak? 

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

"Do you need much? I'd really like to go home."

Oh I know Skeppy. It won't take more than a few minutes I just need the parts that weren't on tape.

"Sure just, quarantine y'know."

You were in there longer than I was, are you alright?

"I made a joke about itching and they did a lot more tests."

Itching is a symptom dud-

"I know, I know. I just wanted to lighten the mood. I'm fine though, except for the holes and the pain and the nightmares and the blood. Could've been worse though huh?"

Yes. Yes, it was- anyway.

Statement of Zak Ahmed, archival assistant at The Magnus Institute, regarding the infestation by the entity formerly known as Sylvee. Statement given 29th July 2016. Take it from when you got back from lunch.

"I knew something was wrong, it was quiet, it's usually quiet but this was dead silence. I spotted the tape recorder and went to uh- see if it was damaged- I heard Halo shouting, it's a bit of a blur to be honest because when I turned around there she was.

Sylvee. A face so full of holes it just, she tried to say something but I couldn't understand her through all the- well. I could see the worms coming from everywhere, I think I was gonna try and hit her and that's when Halo knocked me to the floor. Sylvee didn't seem to expect it and we crushed a lot of worms.

We were running before they went for us and I'm not exactly certain but Halo had to drag me behind him. I saw the shelf was about to topple. So many worms on it, being the hero I am I let go of her hand and I turned to run into the office.

I was trying to get a door between me and Sylvee I didn't know that's where you first found the hole. There were loads of them. Some jumped at me as I ran inside but when I dodge I fell and knocked over a box of files. Co2 cannisters. I used them of course, went full Gas Rambo. After that it gets a bit fuzzy, the paramedic called it respritary acidosis?

Too much Co2 and not enough naturally oxygen. They kept coming and coming and then I saw a massive hole in the wall. It lead to a tunnel and I ran in. They were cold and dry, earthy and rotten. It seemed that almost all of them were in the archives, I have a theory actually.

I don't think they were ready to attack when you found the tunnels. It's like something slows them down here, makes them sluggish. That noise they make, that squirming sound, they don't make it when they're in there. I don't know why but whatever was in the Institute made them weaker.

You found the passage too early and they had to act."

Maybe. Could you describe the tunnels. Humour me?

"They sloped up and around, I couldn't find where I was. I did see some more worms though, they were fast, I only saw a couple but it was still proper jumpscare territory. I wondered for ten minutes before I found a wall that seemed different. I could hear you and George on the other side."

You weren't there when George found the body?

"No I was with you."

You didn't see them down there while you were there?

"I mean I may have still been gassed but I found a room. I didn't stay long cause it had a lot of worms in. They were wrapping around eachother, like they were trying to form a ring. A door maybe."

A doorway? Is it still there?

"No. I pumped two extinguishers into that room. Nothing was getting out."

Good, good. Go home Zak, get some sleep.

"Yeah, sure."

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Darryl Novescosh, archival assistant at The Magnus Institute, regarding the infestation by the entity formerly known as Sylvee. Direct from subject 29th July 2016. In your own time.

"Yes. Where do you want me to begin? I was with you until I ran out to save Zak. Then I was seperated and I pulled the fire alarm because the worms were following me and I didn't want anyone else hurt. I went to Fundy and the bastard wasted some time getting us down. We got seperated and I fled to the storage room. You know I hate the artifect storage room. It must've been bad."

You used to work there didn't you?

"Yes. For three months. I used to think it was the most dangerous place in the Institute."

Not anymore?

"Yes. Not anymore. It was safe enough. The worms didn't get in and I stayed there until the fire system deployed, then I ran out to get to a window. I saw the works shrivel and die. I don't think I'll ever forget that scream though. I heard it from there."

It's thanks to you to be honest. If you hadn't met that Vincent thing-

"Yes. Vincent. With the bones in his hands, we still don't know much about him do we?"

Yeah, sorry getting distracted. You got as far as Sylvees death?

"Yes. I returned to the archives and all the worms were dead. You and Zak just lay there unconscious. The trapdoor was open next to you and you were both alive before I pulled you back to where there was more room and began to remove the worms."

That's dreadful.

"Yes. I understand. That was when Fundy arrived with the fire brigade. They talked to me for a long while and they checked me for worm marks but I was fine. I was left with Fundy and he was looking at me strangely. But we were both quiet, it had been a strange day. We heard cries from the trap door an hour later.

It was George. He was shouting about a body, we got him out and Fundy tried to calm him down. He said he had found a body of the previous archivist, Grian. I tried to calm him down but he was in a bad state."

Right, right. What about the tape? You had one on you? When you gave it back it was empty?

"Yes. I dropped it a few times. I must have accidentally hit eject. I didn't notice until you pointed it out, it's probably around somewhere, is it that important?"

It is to me. Are you feeling alright man? You seem a bit, out of it.

"Yes. I am very tired. Its hard to keep track of things sometimes."

Go get some rest Halo.

"Yes. I will."

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

"I already told the police-"

Well now tell me. I need to hear it, I need to record it.

"Right, okay. Are you okay?"

Fine. The painkillers are wearing off but I'm fine. Statement of George Davidson, archival assistant, etc etc, go.

"Well I was doing some background checks for case #0081709 when you and Darryl started screaming-"

Yes I was there George! I was with the whole time! It survived fine!

"Sorry."

No I- I- I just need the part from when you got seperates from me.

"No I mean, I'm sorry for leaving you."

George-

"I thought you were with me, I thought you were right behind me but when I turned around you were gone and I-I-"

George. It's fine. Everybody is fine. I just need you to tell me what happened next.

"Right. We got seperated and I tried shouting. The walls seemed to kill the sound and there was no light except my torch. I wandered for a while, it's a maze down there Clay. I don't know how far the passages go, maybe miles.

I wandered for a while and I think I was under the old Millbank Prison. I hadn't seen any worms for a while and I started to worry that I had gone too far. I was trying to go back, not that I knew what back was when I heard the scream. I don't know how to go about describing it.

I started to find the worms bodies and I knew Sylvee was dead. But every turn led me to another corridor , I finally found a door I thought I'd get out but instead-

It was a small room. Square. Full of old cassette tapes-"

Thats how you found him?

"Yeah. He was sat in a wooden chair. No worms, no cobwebs just an old corpse, Charles Batchelor. I saw his mouth hanging open and I ran. Thats when I found the trapdoor. Neither the police or I have found the room again."

George. How did Charles Batchelor die?

"I done know, not for sure, it was too dark and the police said the cause of death could be absolutely any-"

George! How did he die?!

"He was shot. Three times that I could see, three shots to the chest."

Right. Right, thank you George.

"Sure."

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Charles Bachelor, the last archivist, was murdered. No worms to infest him or ghostly apparitions to warp his mind or entomb him. He was killed in the archives by someone who used a gun. That scares me more than any spectral being could. Cause it means someone among us is a killer.

The police will investigate I hope but given my track record I do not believe they will find out who did it. There's something among these files. These statements. I know that now, some deeper mystery.

I think Charles Batchelor found it and he was killed for it. Some of my tapes are missing. Maybe it was Sylvee but she was more interested in the actual files. In addition to the tape Darryl lost, tapes #0051701 and #0160204 are gone. The tapes about the old calliope organ and Darryl's statement about Vincent. I don't know why these two specifically.

I cannot trust anyone. I'm going to figure this out and I'm not going to stop. They'll have to kill me first.

End recording.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the official end of S1 :) the beggining of S2 will take a while cause the first statement is one of the ones I barely remember but I promise it picks up from here. Hope you enjoyed :) if anyone's got it yet do tell ;)


	17. Too Deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> S2 let's go Bois

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Clay #9£(29, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, regarding explorations of the tunnel discovered below the archive. Statement given direct, 2nd September 2016.

Statement uh- statement begins.

I've been going into the tunnels. It's uh- Sylvee is dead. I know this. I have a small jar of what's supposedly her ashes but I don't believe it for a second. I feel like George gave me a jar of dust to try and calm me down. For closure.

I hate to say but it does appear to be working. A victory for George I suppose. But that's besides the point. The worms have been cleared and incinerated, the floors and walls repaired and the archive looks like it was never attacked at all.

Unlike me. I've healed enough to return to work but I've been told the scars probably won't ever truely fade. Zak is still gone. I could've stayed away longer, probably should've, but I need this place.

I tried coming back earlier but George threw me out of the archive. Is he hiding something? No hah or course not- he's probably just legitimately concerned for my health. Why do I still feel like I'm being watched?

I'd just about convinced myself it was Sylvee. Watching me in secret while she filled the walls but no, she is dead, she is gone. Yet everytime I talk into this damn thing I feel this- I know I am being watched. It may be the aspect of the recorded but it still happens when I'm reading them.

It's not as strong as when I'm recording them but it still happens. Is it- you know I always despised those witnesses who rambled on. Yet here I am. Pathetic. This isn't the point.

I have been exploring the tunnels, it's been a couple of weeks and I'm sorry George but I went behind your back to do this. Since George stopped living in the archives I've had ample opportunity to go myself.

The first time I attempted to explore them I brought one torch and that was it. I'd never explored down here by torch light and the shadows were starker than I anticipated. Everytime I walked between the shelves in the archive I swear I would see movement. Am I going insane?

I came to the trapdoor and if Darryl hadn't clearly through to mark it with hazard time I don't know if I wouldve found it but I did. The key turned with a click that was oddly satisfying and when I imagined it before I thought of an ominous groan.

But it was almost silent. With only the faintest puff of stagnant air. The opening was pitch black and the stairs down were steep, far steeper than I remember. The memories are unreliable though, tinged with more potent experiences.

The torch illuminated the rough gray stone and the passage was eerily empty. I closed the trap door behind me. It's hard to put into words how it felt to be down there. Have you ever left a crowded room and literally felt the silence as you walked out into the night? Something like that. Unsettling.

I began to explore and it's unreal how quickly I became lost. I usually have an excellent sense of direction but in minutes I was completely lost in the tunnels. I couldn't even call it a maze.

A maze is designed to have a set goal, even if that goal is to confuse and disorientate. This place feels more organic, as though it was intended to be used to travel but it was twisted somehow. I found spaces for rooms but no doors. Elsewhere doors for the walls. Only a handful I opened had actual rooms behind them. There was no way to tell.

When the police finally found Grians body they took it. Along with all the tapes. Evidence, they said, they might be right but I don't envy the task of going through the hundreds or tapes. I suppose I do envy them.

They're an insight into Grian and I need to know. Whatevers on them is important as she either chose to hide them down here or whoever killed them did. I don't feel it's something the police were going to find.

I didn't take a note of when I entered so I don't know how long I wandered before I found the first of the worms. It can't have been more than a half hour. Shriveled, stringy things. It was odd to see how clear a line there was between the wormless tunnels and the ones filled with corruption.

They were still. None the less I went slower through the passages. The air was colder here, the faint tang of rot in the air. I began to wonder how much battery I had in the torch. I hadn't even been down there an hour but it felt like the light it cast was weaker. I cut the trip short and turned back. It was almost impossible to retrace my steps. A burnt door, a warped corridor. I couldn't find my own landmarks again.

I found the circle of worms that Zak described. I'm sorry Zak but I did only half believe you, he had the right of it though. There was a thick carpet of dead worms but a few were embedded in the wall. The ceiling was higher here and inside the circle the stone was wrong. Solid but oddly wavy. Like chocolate that's melted and then rehardened.

I waded through the shallow sea of filth and when I touched the wall it felt soft. As I did I noticed another path also appeared to have pushed through the worms. I don't know who made it. It took me an hour to find the trap door and the torch showed no sign of giving up but I was panicking.

I fumbled several times with the handle before falling through it onto the archive floor. Some of my wounds had been reopened so I headed home. It turned out the trip took far more out of me and it took a week before I was up for another exploration.

I packed 3 torches this time and enough batteries to last for days. A box of white chalk to mark my way and the largest knife I was able to buy at short notice. Everytime I'm there I'm almost sure I hear movement.

Beyond that I made sure I took one of the small extinguishers to kill any remaining worms. At nightfall I took myself into the archives and started marking every wall in chalk. If there was anything down there and I had to run all I'd need to do was follow the chalk.

For a while it worked but I started to loop. I set up a watch and after a half hour I managed to find clear passages and got deeper than ever before. The tunnels lined with worms and then beyond them to the tunnels entirely empty and undisturbed since Millbank Prison.

I had done research on Millbank. First designed in 1799 by Jeremy Benthon. To test the idea of the Panopticon prison. Where cells were placed around a single watch tower. For constant surveillence. All under observance.

From the air it would have the shape of a vast flower. It's not clear why that plan was abandoned but from 1812 onward a lot of architects were brought in to finish the project. Finally, they brought in Robert Smyrke. He saw the project to completion in 1821 with a design remarkably similar.

Except with Smyrkes design, it was described as an eccentric maze. Throughout much of the 19th century its where prisoners were kept. It was a huge complex covering what we call Chelsea and when it was finally closed in 1890 it was demolished.

Which means what I was in couldn't have been the prison, it had to be something built below it. This was what gave me cause when I found the stairway leading even deeper down. Spiraling into the darkness so steep my legs weakened slightly. I made a note of their existence before going deeper into the current tunnels for a while before going down.

There was every possibility these tunnels continued for miles and I didn't see much down there by that point. It was shortly after this I found the next staircase. It was identical. All but one detail. A large chalk arrow pointing downwards.

I don't need to say I didn't draw it. This was curled and weak. That's when I heard the noises again. Soft, quiet. I froze in place and listened but the noises did not return.

I am not a brave man. I'm coming to terms with that fact but I am in most circumstances, a very stubborn one. Something inside me made the decision I'd rather die to some tunnel dwelling beast than work above. I can almost hear my assistants mocking me for the lack of caution but its hard to explain the borderline mania that gripped me when I saw that arrow.

Mocking and inviting all in one. I did not run down the stairs but I went quicker than was safe down and down but I saw no sign of reaching the bottom. I went down four levels before my torch caught on something I thought was movement.

I ran from the stairs but found no sign of life or death. Only an empty wine bottle. The label was legible as 2003. It was in one of the tunnels that it happened. When I looked up to see the turning ahead of me was no longer there. It was simply a dead end. I heard nothing but I turned back and immediately noticed the wall opposite me was closer than it was before.

The passage was getting narrower but I could not see anything. It was silent but then from somewhere in the darkness I heard a single word.

"Leave."

It wasn't a threat, simply a command. Everytime I closed my eyes the walls went even closer and I fled back in the stairs and followed the arrows and I moved faster than I ever thought possible. I locked the trap door behind me and placed the heaviest objects on it.

I have not been below since then. I decided to officially make a statement and I am no closer to finding what's down there. Why point me downwards only to then command me to back? I don't know but finding whatever secret is lurking beneath them is my primary concern.

End Recording

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, I don't care about the tunnels or the secrets they might hide. That's not true I suppose I have a burning curiosity as to what's inside but my focus must be on who killed Charles Batchelor.

I do not believe for a moment that it was a wall moving spectre. Far more likely its one of my colleagues. Fundy is the prime suspect but it could've been any of them. I told George the second recorder was lost but having two I can make two seperate recordings. I will use the supposedly lost one for supplements to hold my own investigations.

If you're hearing this I assume you're my replacement. I have little more to add than this initial account but my statement was of course completely true. The only lie was an exaggeration of my interests in the tunnels. My frien- colleagues believe that is my main focus and they may let their guard down. This level or paranoia is new to me but I'm learning fast.

Trust can get you killed.

End supplement.


	18. Section 31

<-Recording Begins->

"I really shouldn't be talking about it on tape dude."

Thats entirely up to you. You came to us.

"Yeah, I just wanna talk about it with something ya know."

Yes.

"I'm breaking the law by talking to you, you understand that don't you? My big bro is gonna think I'm so not cool."

Yes I think I understand? Some sort of non disclosure agreement?

"Pretty much. Do you need my real name?"

No but from what I understand you're pretty identifiable without it. I'll mark the tape and file it for internal use only which comes under the institutes NDA policy. The police will not be able to ask for it.

"That's the best you can offer me?"

I'm afraid so. I remind you though you are under no obligation to make a statement. You can write it down if your voice is recognisable? 

"I'm not big on writing, more of a talker."

Odd choice of career then? I hear there's a lot of paperwork.

"Not much since I became Section 31, I need to be with my brother anyways."

Yes you mentioned this Section 3- you know what we will cover it in the statement.

Statement of Police officer Thomas Simmons, regarding his time investigating strange occurances as part of Section 31. Statement direct from subject, September 19th 2016.

Statement Begins.

"Now?"

Yes.

"Right well first off call me Tommy and second of all, I'm not part of Section 31. It's not a unit or anything its a form you have to sign, section 31 of the freedom of information act. It means that any information that interferes with the prevention of detection or a crime can't be given out.

When you stumble across something that's a bit weird, you are taken a side and told to sign a form, declaring what you saw and experienced as a crime. Then it's covered by section 31 and can't be revealed.

There's a whole bunch of other NDA stuff but it basically means you have to be quiet about it. Thing is, once you sign a section 31 really marks you out. Word spreads fast and once they see you signed one people push you in that direction.

They called you sectioned which is kind of appropriate, you're generally assigned to head with others who signed and anything weird in a scene you're called for. It's kind of a unit but not one of any funding or training. I'm of course, the man for the job though. I will admit though that it does have 5x the retirement rate. That's why it took so long to get here when you found Mr Batchelors body.

I was on a burglary with Carla. The only other sectioned officer. You can bet no one else was responding to a call from The Magnus Institute. No offense dude."

None taken. Full names please?

"What? Oh- PC Richard Carla."

Thank you. I did notice you seemed less taken aback by the number of worm corpses?

"Yeah it's easily the grossest thing I've seen but not the weirdest."

Shall we start at the beginning?

"Okay, well, the first time I got a section 31 was 2 years ago, August 2014. I'd got my badge the year before that and was getting used to some of the stressful bits of the job. The week before this I heard some officer had his leg shattered by some ass hole with a bat. We could only listen to it. That mix of adrenaline and helplessness, it does something to your brain.

I was admittedly a bit rattled as, as cool as I am, this was still new and I was only 20. There was a fire nearby and the fire brigade neaded backup. A residential home owner was getting violent and there was a high suspicion of arson.

I was riding with John Spencer that day, I wasn't a fan of him, let's just say I wasn't a fan of the way he'd look at the minority and say 'diversity'. So, I never had enough care to grieve about what happened to him. I don't know if he deserved it or not.

We arrived at the smokey house and the fire fighters had it locked down. They were struggling to keep a guy restrained though, he was a Hispanic male, probably mid to late 40's. Heavy set, completely shaved head. One of the fire fighters with a black eye told us that he had burst out of the house and started throwing punches.

It's an assault job sure but why the arson? I realised he was saying something. I don't know the exact details but it involved 'cleansing fire' and 'all shall be ash' as well as Asag? Apparently its the name of some demon. So that's fun.

I reckoned the arson was probably his fault and he went to arrest the guy. As I was cuffing him there was a sudden intense pain in my hand. I once took a welding class in high school, forgot that just cause metal isn't glowing red doesn't mean it isn't hot. It felt like that.

The same burn and pain, too intense to process. As it was I was left with some badly blistered fingers and the guy leaned over and whispered something into Spencers ear. He had gone completely pale.

He refused to tell me what the guy had said. Our arsonists name was Diego Malina, assistant curator at some museum. However the mentioned museum hadn't seen in him weeks. He didn't say much but his English was clearly fine.

Unfortunately the arson cause collapsed. We had to slap him with assault and let him walk. Spencer hadn't helped anything by getting himself suspended. See, Diego Malina only had a small red book on his person and they caught Spencer in storage trying to burn it. I never saw him again.

They told me he killed himself when he got home, filled the bath will boiling water and got in. That information it- I was barely 20."

Oh I-

I apologise.

"It's okay. I'm okay. The official story on his suicide was he used a kettle somehow which, may be the weakest cover up ever. After that happened and I'd explained my fingers they gave me my very first section 31."

I see. How many paranormal events do you investigate?

"None, no one says the p word- hahah- sorry childish. Not supernatural, spooky, anything like that. Weird, odd, strange though? Section 31. Almost all of them are false alarms. The only justifiable ones being the folks with genuine mental health issues. Those are the ones that sound weird at first but eventually are just that, issues.

I didnt get another genuine Section 31 until late last year. I remember it was the hottest day of the year and the aircon in the car was out. It was me and my brother Nick Armstrong. People call him Sapnap but I can never get him to tell me why.

Anyways, Sap was sectioned years before I got on the force, takes everything very seriously. He's never said much to me, said he was initially sectioned for something to do with spider husks. He never wanted to clarify what he meant like that.

I think he mentioned vampires once but he was probably joking. I know my brother enough for that. Probably. Maybe.

Anyways we were headed towards Kensington because we had a very weird call from the paramedic report after a gun fight or something? Apparently something in the report made them wait to wait for us to get there.

We headed up the stairs and at each door there were eyes staring out through the door until we reached the door that was already opened. The windows had all been painted over and the lights were taken out. However it was clear there was a lot of blood lost. A lot.

We found the victim in the living room, his face was a mess and it was clear he'd been shot in the head multiple times at close range. It was hard to tell how old he was because of how mangled his dace was. Sap spotted the gun lying next to him and retrieved it while I went to check the place.

I turned around when I heard Sap scream that the man was moving, he was gurgling something, reaching for the gun. Sap leapt towards the gun to take it away from him but he had raised it to his head. Sap grabbed the gun before he managed to pull the trigger again and tried to pull it away from him.

He made a noise, it was horrible. I think he was trying to cry. The paramedics took him after that and I assume hospitals have their own section 31. Sap and I told them we'd clear it up on the police side as a standard suicide. It cut down on forms and we didn't wanna sign another section 31."

I see. What other cases have fallen under this?

"Officially, I've only had one other which was yours."

Officially?

"You get a few dozen calls but not enough evidence to report it as a section 31. I feel bad for them, they're always so sure you can help but, unless they can point to the ghost or the clown doll there's not enough we can do.

I've been quite lucky to avoid the majority of gorey section 31's. I remember Harry Olmon would get wasted and tell grim stories. Worked with him a few years back before he retired."

Right, just to get back to Charles body that's currently considered a weird case?

"I mean we are investigating it as a murder but you guys are an automatic section 31. Maybe that's why I wanted to make a statement, couldn't talk to anybody about this stuff. Been meaning to come in for years.

I tried making the argument that the murder had nothing to do with ghosts but nope. I'm alone. Sap is CID which means it's technically his problem but he's now the only detective who's already sectioned so.

As far as I know, neither of us have even listened to the tapes."

I see. So list-

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Obviously investigation into those police cases is impossible. Ensuring NDA policies are kept is top priority and investigation would put that in danger. Much as I value the deductive powers of my team, they are not trained detectives.

Certainly nothing they could unearth that's worth the week. We do have a name for our mystery burn victim from case #0121102. Diego Malina. I have a suspicion I know where he got that book.

Shame he's dead of course but a piece of the puzzle is not something to be ignored.

End Recording.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplement, I've been watching George. Hes been very attentive to my needs at the exclusion of his own tasks. He's never been this wary of me before and previously I'd have described it as some awkward crush like actions but after Sylvee I am sure I glanced moments of cunning. 

Is he playing the fool? He has shown remarkable interests in who killed Grian. I told him its the thing in the tunnels but he seems unsatisfied by that response. I'm glad hes moved out as I can work here without him breathing down my neck and he left some possessions. 

It's mainly just coding books and one or two notebooks of poetry. There are a couple that I feel could be effecting if his style wasn't so enamoured in- this isn't the point.

There is an unfinished letter addressed to his mother. He mentions he is worried about the others finding out he has been lying. It may be nothing as it is written to his mother but if he's lying about who it's being sent to. 

I will keep my eye on George. 

End supplement. 

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, I have convinced Tommy to give me access to the tape. He can't guarantee the tapes will be the ones important to me but it's a victory.

Part of me worries about what I find on these tapes but the bigger part worried that I'll find nothing.

End Supplemental.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sapnap is a cop and a bastard but he could threaten me with a knife and I could thank him, he would be a DND barbarian who refuses to rage, there are two kinds of comments on his page. 1) all cops are bastards, 2)i am gay. That is what most of the sapnap comments say-
> 
> (I apologise for anyone who does not get that)


	19. Tightrope

<-Recording Begins->

Case #9790372, Yuri Utkin. Incident in Central Russia November 1952. Statement given 2nd of March 1979. Committed to tape 15th of April 1997. Charles Batchelor recording.

a child, I always loved the circus. I grew up in the little village of Algasovo, deep in the forest steppes. We were tiny, far below the notice of the district’s райсовет, and as such we were quite a poor community, with little hope of being added to the circus routes as anything but a waystation. Every year he would take my brother Ivan and me, and we would make the journey down to Morshansk to see the circus as soon as it arrived.

Jugglers, acrobats, wild animals… it took my breath away every time. My favourites were the clowns. Not as you would think of them; I’ve seen what you call clowns in this country, but back then clowns would actually tell jokes, not simply hit each other and fall over. I didn’t always understand the jokes they told, but there was something intoxicating about sitting there, surrounded by people all laughing and cheering. Even if I didn’t always share their amusement, I always shared in their joy.

I never liked the acrobats, though. I would watch them swinging from the top of the tents, leaping between the trapeze or walking their tightropes, and my chest would tighten, and all I could see in my mind would be the image of them falling to the sand-covered floor. I’ve never been afraid of heights myself, you understand; I used to spend half my summers at the top of the tallest trees I could find. When I was six, my best friend Piotr fell when we were climbing together. He survived, but broke his leg so badly that he still walks with a limp today. From that moment, that long terrible moment when I watched him fall, whenever I would watch the acrobats fly through the air it was all I could do not to close my eyes. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that my visit to the circus in Morshansk remains some of the happiest memories I have of my childhood.

One day in early November, the circus came to Algasovo. To say this was strange is to put it very mildly. As I’ve said, we were a small village, and far below the notice of the troupes that travelled the region. More than that, winter was beginning to set in, and it should have been many months before the touring season began again.

Then, as now, all circuses were owned and run by the government, something that is taken very seriously, so the idea that it might be an independent company that had simply found itself in Algasovo was unthinkable. There were always rumours of vagrants or travellers who would set up their own shows, but these would be small things, always half-ready to move on if someone reported them to the local сельсовет. This circus was huge, easily as big as the ones I would see at Morshansk. The trucks rolled through the village shortly before dawn, and by the evening there it stood in the field to the east of town. Over the entrance stood a brightly painted wooden sign that read “Другой Цирк”, “Another Circus”.

I begged my father to go. He was weary, but it became clear that almost everyone in the village was planning to visit, even if only so they knew what to report to the сельсовет later. Soon a mob of us were heading through the icy November evening towards the colourful tents and bright lights. As we approached I heard a shrill, piping sound. I’d never before heard a steam organ - they had not been used in the other circuses I had visited, and I found the noise invigorating. There was something in its shriek that thrilled me, though it was the last time I would be able to hear such a sound without being filled with the deepest dread.

There was no fence around the outside, but instead the gate stood alone before the circus, with the name illuminated by gaslights either side. It was not a surprise that such a place would not have electricity like the ones in Morshansk, but still it seemed as though the flickering shadows cast by those lamps were starker than I was used to. Next to the gate stood a short woman in a leotard, seemingly oblivious to the cold. As the group of us approached, she began to wave with a slow, languid motion and called over for us to come in. The circus was open, she said, and all were welcome. Her voice was strange. The Russian she spoke was perfect, but her accent, her intonation were all wrong; each time she spoke it was abrupt and repetitive, like a scratched record.

If my father and his friends noticed, they didn’t show any sign of it, though they were suspicious enough already. I didn’t care. I was too excited about the circus. Ivan was even keener than I was, and upon hearing this invitation, he burst out of the crowd and ran eagerly through the gate. And then it was as though some spell were broken, and the wariness seemed to disappear all at once. My father took my hand and led me through under that bright sign, paying the five roubles for entry.

Beyond it there were more gaslights casting their pallid glow on tents and wagons. That whistling steam organ still played, giving the place a feeling of life and energy, while the air was full of sweet smells. From behind the tent came the roar of a big cat, and I let go of my father’s hand as I ran ahead to see. Sure enough, there, sat behind thick iron bars, was the vivid, orange face of a tiger. It regarded me with narrowed eyes, though it remained still. I was entranced. Its fur was shiny and thick, and its mouth curled open to reveal long teeth of brilliant white. I had seen bears and lions before, and once even an elephant, but I’d never seen a real-life tiger before. I leant closer, until all that was between us were six inches and some rusty iron bars.

As I stared at this beautiful creature in front of me, it moved its head. It was the strangest thing to watch. It seemed to shift its position slowly, like a doll having its joints twisted, but its face remained completely still. The mouth stayed curled to reveal its teeth, the ears stayed alert and pointed forward, and the eyes still stared out, though where they had at first seemed brilliant, they now had an almost glassy look to them. Without warning it roared, the same powerful cry of violence that I had heard before, but as it did so I fell back in surprise. The tiger’s mouth had not moved.

As I scrambled back, I felt a large hand on my shoulder, and looked up to see two huge men in overalls. They lifted me easily, so my feet hung almost two feet from the ground. They talked fast, crude Russian, and their words seemed to shift back and forth between them, telling me that behind the tent was off limits, and that I should leave the tiger alone as it wasn’t ready to perform yet. At least, that’s what I thought they’d said at the time. It was only later that it struck me their exact phrase had been that the tiger “wasn’t finished”. They carried me back to my father and placed me down next to him. He thanked them, and asked me if I’d seen my brother.

Ivan had not returned after he ran off through the gate, and my father was growing concerned. He was standing talking to a pale man in a flamboyant red coat, whom I took to be the ringmaster. This brightly-dressed man said there was no reason to be alarmed, that he would ask his people to be on the lookout, and that Ivan would no doubt return when the show was about to start. There was much to explore in the circus, he told my father patiently, and children often let their excitement get the better of them in this strange new place, but they had never lost one yet. This last part he said with a smile that I think was supposed to be reassuring, but reminded me too much of the tiger with its shiny, unmoving teeth.

I left them arguing there and went off to find Ivan. In my ten-year-old’s mind I was sure that I would be able to figure out where my younger brother had wandered to. I would return triumphant, and my father would tell all the village of how well I had done. As I walked, I became fascinated by the flickering gaslights, some clear and bright, others behind coloured glass, and decided that Ivan would also have been drawn to them. So I followed them round the tent, and through the wagons and trucks, until I found myself standing before a smaller tent, set off to the side of the big top. There was another wooden sign across the top. This one appeared to be written in English; I did not then understand what it said. Knowing what I know now, I believe it said, “Freak Show”.

Now you must understand that the freak show was not part of a Soviet circus. Indeed, I believe even in America the practice has been out of fashion for many, many years, so I did not have any idea what to expect when I went in looking for Ivan. What I saw inside is one of the main reasons that I am so sure that my experience deserves to be in your library. It’s the reason I went to Moscow to study medicine, for the people, if such they can be called, that I saw in there were of such grotesque proportion and bodily forms that I became obsessed with learning how it was they might still live.

It was only when I was many years into my medical training that I finally accepted that, scientifically, such things were not possible. A mouth cannot function if it’s located anywhere other than the face. Limbs cannot bend like rubber. A man cannot walk and talk and stare without a head. You will, I hope, forgive my lack of precise descriptions. It has been 27 years since that night, and I can no longer clearly distinguish between what is memory and what is nightmare.

I walked along the row of cages. Those few other patrons who had found their way to this tent turned around quickly, leaving with pale faces and shaking legs, but I was determined to find Ivan. I closed my eyes as I walked, opening them only momentarily every few steps to check if he was there. I called out, but there was no reply, either from my brother, or from the silent things in their cages. Finally, I reached the end of the tent. The last cage was empty, save for a large hessian sack. It was tied by thick rope, wrapped around so tightly that it bulged through the gaps in its binding. I took momentary comfort in the fact that it was far too big to be Ivan. Still, I found myself approaching it, curiosity momentarily overcoming my growing sense of dread. Then, in the distance, the steam organ began to play, announcing the start of the show, and the bag began to move.

It contorted itself, pulsing and throbbing like a wounded animal’s stomach, and fell heavily forward. I screamed and fled out into the frozen night. It was only when I was about to pass back out through the wooden gates that I stopped, remembering that, even if Ivan had fled like me, my father was still in this terrible place. I resolved to rescue him, and turned back towards the main tent. Light spilled out of the open entrance, as the steam organ kept playing.

I entered to see two clowns fighting. Not the slapstick routines of the clowns I’d been used to, rife with wordplay and satire, but a crunching violence I had never seen before. One of them, huge and scowling in white and purple polka-dots, pinned down its smaller companion, whose bright yellow shirt was now streaked with red. With each blow from the big clown, the crowd, among whom I could clearly see my father, howled with laughter and cheers. The laughter didn’t sound right. None of it was right. It was as though I was looking at a tent full of vicious strangers, every one of whom wore a face I had known since birth.

Then my gaze drifted upwards, to the tightrope stretched between the towering tent poles, and my heart stopped. Halfway across, tottering on legs too short to balance properly, was Ivan. Everything else was forgotten as I watched him there, and the sounds of the world around me faded away. The question of how he had got up there, or made it halfway along that thin metal wire, didn’t even enter my mind. I could think of nothing but that next step that would send him tumbling to a floor caked in sand, greasepaint and blood.

No-one else in the audience or the ring seemed to have noticed him up there, and my throat had closed too tight to call to them. I could do nothing but watch as Ivan took another step along the tightrope. He swayed to one side, then the other, and I could see he was crying, tears falling to the floor like single drops of rain. He took another step. And then another. He did not fall. I watched in amazement as my seven-year-old brother walked and walked. My heart was still clenched in fear, and I could not breathe. Ivan took his final step, lifted his right foot, and placed it upon the platform on the opposite tent pole. He had made it. He gripped the pole and moved around it and out of sight.

I do not know how long I had stood there watching, but it seemed like only a moment later I felt my father’s hand grip me by the shoulder. I turned to see him standing there with Ivan by his side. He had a look on his face as though he had eaten something that had spoiled, and without a word he led us out of the circus and back to our home. The field was empty by the next morning.

No-one in our village ever spoke of that night, and when the state circus came to Morshansk the next year, my father did not offer to take us, and we did not ask.

For many years, I thought that it might have been some strange dream or distorted memory, as no-one ever acknowledged that it had happened. But I asked Ivan about it when we were older, and he hesitantly said that he remembered the circus coming, but everything after running through the gate was a blur. I pressed him further on the subject, and he just shook his head. He didn’t remember what happened, he said, but he still got terrible nightmares. Every November, around when the circus had come to Algasovo, he would dream that he was there again. He could smell the sawdust and hear the steam-organ playing, but he could not move. In the dream he would find himself tightly bound with coarse rope and trapped inside a thick hessian sack. I remembered those nights. He always woke up screaming

Statement Ends.

Final comments, sounds from what I CD an tell that Yuri Utkin and his brother were lucky as they only escaped with mental trauma. A decidely tame result for a run in with Orsinovs troupe.

Especially as this was the height of their tour, if it was in the 70's it'd be less of a surprise but as it stands its amazing the whole town made it through. Its a good thing the children surprised and it peaks my interest in Ivan Utkin.

Unfortunately he passed away in 1984, he must've been something rather special.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, this is the first of the tapes I've received from Tommy. Luckily it appears Gertrude was not as relaxed marking these tapes as she had the rest of the archives. I will admit to some dissapointment it does not give me any answers to the questions I have though.

Why did she begin recording them? Why stop too. If she'd done this up to her death she would've gone through the entire archive. Moreover she clearly knows a lot more about what's going on than I assumed.

It's far from the first time she's encountered the 'circus of the other' or however its translated. I'll have to return the tape to Tommy until he can get me another one. It's infuriating to wait.

But there's nothing else I can do.

Additionally I think someone found these secret tapes. The draw in which I kept them was slightly more open than I left it. I don't want to mention it to the others as if they went in my drawer for innocent reasons than I don't want to give them a reason to think there's anything secretive in them.

I pried up one of the floorboards and will be hiding them in there from now on.

End Supplement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bee boy is coming.


	20. Literary Heights

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Herbert Knox, regarding a repeat customer to his bookshop. Original statement given December 21st 2014. Audio recording by Clay @9£(, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins.

Its hard to explain to you what exactly it was that I experienced. There were many things that happened, each strange in their own way. However, there's no links between them except that they all ended up involving the same high school student by the nearby school.

His name was Toby Smith, though his friends called him Tubbo, the friends that threw gum in his hair and left him with bruises. But that is besides the point. I don't usually pay attention to the students who come into my shop especially near the beginning part of the year as I have a soft spot for the antique so new students regard my book shop with curiosity.

I've heard more than one comparison to that shop in Stephen Kings 'Needful Things' or whatever it was called. However, I deal with mostly in rare books so they get one look at the prices and lose interest. Of course there are always a couple of rich kids who couldn't buy their child into a private school. So it's not a complete waste. 

It's rare that I have cause to remember one of my student customers. Toby struck me the moment he walked into my shop. This would've been last September and I don't remember the exact date. He was short, perhaps 5 foot something, very thin. Underfed, I remember thinking. Light brown hair, green eyes. The average school child. 

It hadn't turned cold yet but he wore a high collared coat and a thick scarf. Now I'm getting on in years and much as I love my shop the building is drafty and I generally have the heating up high. Enough so that he was obviously uncomfortable wrapped up like that and he removed the scarf to reveal a branching white scar tissue arching up the side of his neck.

It was interesting certainly but that's not what caught my eye. What struck me most was that in Tobys eyes, there was not wonder or curiosity, he looked impatient. He was clearly looking for something specific so I asked if I could get him anything.

Without looking up he asked me if I had a copy of de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal - the older, the better. I only had a 1980 translation asked if he wanted an inquiry for an older edition. He didn't answer to this and neither to my question or my casual question about if he was studying demonology.

He took the book to my desk and I started looking for my credit card machine. As I did I smelt the strangest thing, it was like before a storm breaks, that sharp smell in the air but outside the sky was clear. At this Toby went very still. He reached into the jacket and pulled out a wad of cash and was through the door before I could cash him out a receipt. As soon as he was gone the smell was too.

I didn't know his name at that point but it wasn't the last time I saw him. Every 3 weeks or so he'd come into my shop and check any new stock. He was interested in witchcraft and meteorology. I had no idea where he was getting his money but he had a lot, he managed to pay 5 figures for a copy of a 1559 copy of Malleus Maleficarum as if it was nothing.

At some point I learnt his name, I wouldn't have described him as a friend but over that year he'd have been my most regular customer. Sometimes when he was in my shop that acrid tang would return. It wasn't like it came from Toby but when he was around the smell would just be there.

It was the only time I'd smell it inside and when I did, Toby would stop whatever he was doing and leave immediately. There was another thing to, whenever he was in the lights in my shop would burn brighter. I didn't even realise this until he'd been coming for several months.

I noticed that whenever he came in the bulbs would buzz very softly and there was this strange electric crackling. I never brought it up with Toby though.

It was February when I got the Leitner book. I'd heard of him before but I'd never met the man, the rare book trade was a small word and he'd come up sometimes. Occasionally there were more unsavoury rumours about his life so even though I'd never made his acquintence I was well aware of Leitner. When he dissapeared in 1994 I was one of the many that heard his books were back in circulation.

I certainly didn't think I'd get my hand on one though. Curstong Bowleman was a book dealer friend of mine who had died in January of this year. Fell down the stairs and broke her neck. To be honest I wasn't as surprised as I should've been though it was alarming.

A lot of the big names in the book trade have been found dead. The police even got involved in a while as someone thought a murderer was targeting book sellers. I suppose its just an example of how one generation makes way for the next but what surprised me more than her death was that she made me her literary executor. So it was I came into the possession of a Leitner.

It was strange. Ex Altiora or 'From the heights' was the name, it was custom bound in the late 18 hundreds. It was written in Latin and seemed to be a long poem, illustrated with striking wood cuts. It told the tale of an old small town high on a cliff top that sees a monster begin to approach.

The poem is unclear whether it is a beast, a demon or a god as they use the words interchangebly. It's head and body lost among the cloud. The story details the villagers attempts to fight this creature but each time they devise a counter measure the beast comes closer and is shown to be larger than suspected.

By the time it is upon them the sheer vastness cause the villagers to surrender. Hurled themselves off the cliff top. It was a strange book.

Made all the stranger by the fact it appeared to be utterly unique, I had seen no other copies and could not find any record of it. After several calls to museums and archives, I was convinced it was a completely unique book. This didn't please me as much as you quite imagine.

This is because I was in possession of an artefact, which belonged more in a museum than a library. However, museum worthy books take so much authentication that to be honest, it hadn't been worth the amount I sold it for. Museums aren't as well funded as private collectors.

Besides that something about the book itself that unsettled me. Reading it was disorientating in a way I can't put into words. Especially the wood cuts. They were quite crude but not unsettling yet twice when reading it I fell off my chair.

Over the week I possessed it I had enough dizzy spells that I had to book an appointment with my doctor although at the time I didn't make a correlation between them and the book.

I had bad dreams as well. I don't recall them with much clarity but I'm rather sure they were dreams of falling.

Toby came in at the end of that week. I hadn't expected him but I'd put aside some books for him and was ready to yell at some more kids who'd come in to 'visit him'. 

As was his habit he said almost nothing and he felt no need to remove his scarf so only the faintest hints of that scar peaked out. The light bulbs brightened and the electricity crackled.

I presented the books I had chosen to him, he looked through them quickly before pushing them back and apologetically shaking his head. This was not uncommon and I took it as no insult.

As I went to return the books I had a wave of dizziness. I gripped my chair and steadied myself but when I looked back at Toby he was staring at the Leitner book with an expression I'd never seen on his face before.

He pointed at Ex Altiora and asked how much it was. I started to tell him it wasn't for sale but he had this look in his eyes, like furious desperation. It sounds silly but I had the strangest sense that this child would kill me for that book.

All this combined with the discomfort I had with the thing was a bit too much. I named a figure that I thought was double than what it was actually worth. Toby wrote a cheque so fast I thought his pen wound break the paper.

I insisted on ringing up a receipt for this and without another word he was out. That would've been it given what happened next I don't think I'd ever have seen Toby Smith again. If it wasn't for the simple fact that his cheque bounced.

I didn't quite believe it at first, he always dropped huge amounts of money on books so the idea that he couldn't afford something hadn't registered. I decided to go to him to either get the book back or sort out other arrangements. I felt like I owed it to him.

I had his address from a delivery he request and I walked over to his flat. The sky was a bruised gray and I was glad I brung my umbrella as it was promising to be a storm. I smelt the same smell from all of Tony's previous visits though even then I didn't realise what it meant.

I reached his door and knocked, I tried to not be too aggressive but firm enough, based on how he's acted I didn't want to make him think I was there to hurt him. I needn't have given any thought to it at all though.

The door opened before I finished knocking and I had the oddest feeling that I was standing on the edge of a great drop. Toby stood there, looking terribly exhausted. From inside came the odor of a child who had not been outside his room for many days.

All over the floor were pages and pages of scrawled Latin text which alarmed me until I saw the whole book clutched in his arm. I began to explain why I was there but he didn't seem to register the words. Just staring blankly.

I remember I had reached the point where I started repeating the word cheque over and over to grab his attention when the first droplets of rain hit his window. Without warning Tobys eyes went wide with fear and his face went so pale, his scar seemed to vanish. Then the first peel of thunder and the smell of ozone hit me so intensely I could barely breathe.

As I looked up I saw Toby running full force while clutching the Leitner book. I must've hit my head and my thinking was muddled but I was convinced he was trying to escape with the book. With a determition I hadn't expected I had this urge that I had to stop him. To stop Toby Smith from stealing my Leitner.

I got up and chased him into the pouring rain. Weaving around and his small figure seemed to dance with the lightning that raced across the sky in a way I'd barely seen before. I could just about make out his figure and sometimes when the lightning hit the sky I could've sworn I saw someone else chasing him.

It was hard to make out as it only seemed to appear for momentary flashes but it seemed tall, thin, it's limbs angular and branching. Like Tobys scar.

I don't know how he got into the bell tower for the cathedral as it stands seperate from the main building. Tall and imposing. The lightning starkly illuminating it.

One of the doors at the base stood open and I dashed inside and up the stairs. The smell was so thick inside I gagged on the stench. In my determition to stop a young boy from stealing my book I forgot my old age would return and I collapsed slightly on the stairs.

I began to slowly climb towards the top. I've never been afraid of heights but as I got higher and higher up the stairs my heart fluttered as if I was about to have a heart attack. Finally, I reached the top.

I could hear shouting from the bell room, it was Toby, he was screaming something that sounded like a prayer. It was in languages I couldn't understand but I made out some words. "Altiora", "Vertigo" and "The Vast".

I reached the top and there I saw Toby standing before an open window. He held the book infront of him like a shield and infront of him was a strange branching figure.

It crackled and fizzed, lit by a strobing white light as if the lightning was in the room. It was standing there as if it couldn't approach and Toby reached the crescendo of his chanting and with a cry of "I am yours."

He leapt through the open window.

Presumably to his death.

The strange figure cried out, a sound like tearing soundpaper and was dragged through the window through him. The smell vanished instantly and I was alone.

I say presumably about his jumping almost 100 feet to his death, because I found no body at the bottom of the bell tower. Neither could the police who treated me like a lunatic. When the sky cleared shortly afterwards it became apparent that the windows to the bell tower were closed and sealed.

I never saw Toby Smith or the Leitner book again.

Statement Ends.

Toby Smith, another name that seems to pop up more than once in relation to Leitners and twice regarding this volume. Could his exposure to the bone turners tale have catalised his interest in Jurgen Leitner?

It seems he was using the book to protect himself from whatever was chasing him. Did the bone turners tale not work in that regard? What even was chasing him?

Its a shame that Ex Altiora was burned in the end, I wouldve liked to read it. Especially as there is one feature Mr Knox did not mention. Compared to the statement of Dominic Swain in #0132806. The book Mr Knox received did not have a wood cut of the dark night sky, with the branching arching design of the Licthenburg figure.

End Recording

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplement, I've been doing some digging into Zak, watching him. There's just one thing I don't understand, why is he working here? 5 years successfully building his way up in publishing house and then out of the blue he comes to work for us.

Why? I can't find any indication of an interest in the paranormal, why stay too? Is it just loyalty o-

"Hey I just wanted to know if you wanted some tea?"

Uh-

"Oh youre recording? I thought you were done for the day dork."

I was it uh-

"Why do you have pictures of Zak?"

It's a performance review an-

"Why do you have pictures of his house?"

Very confidential review. You shouldn't be looking at them please leave George.

"Okay weirdo."

-Door Clicks-

I need to find a better place to do these recordings.

End supplement.

<-End Recording->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, someone else has been going into the tunnels. The trap door was unlocked and I confronted the others but they all denied. Someone must think there's something down there worth finding. Perhaps hiding.

Searching or hiding it could be either and I may set up a camera to watch the trap door. I went down there but it seems the same as last time. The only difference now is all the spider webs, I think I saw some larger specimens eating the remains of the worms. It was a disconcerting sight. I left immediately.

End supplemental.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tubbo best boy


	21. The New Door

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Eret Williams regarding uh- how would you describe it?

Eret?

"Uh- what?"

Your experience how would you describe it?

"Um well I've been trying to draw you a map but it doesn't work."

Right. Statement of Eret Williams regarding a new door in the house he was selling. Statement recorded direct from subject 2nd October 2016, statement begins.

Eret?

"There are no left turns- none! It just turns right, it doesn't make any sense and it wasn't spiral because you could always go forward and I did mostly go forward? The paths never got shorter like you were coming to a centre it just- look at it."

Eret I-

"Look at it!"

Y-you're right this map doesn't make any sense. After a while it turns a mess of impossible lines, yes. However, it'd be very useful if you could give us some information as to how this all started.

"What do you want to know? There wasn't a door. Then there was. I worked for an estate agency, I suppose I still do I haven't officially quit but I haven't been back since this. We sell properties in the Wimbledon area and specialise in well appointed family homes.

We've had a lot of success and I've been with the agency for a few years now and I've done thousands of viewings so believe me when I say there was nothing unusual about this house. Maybe the fact the owner was selling it for 2 million but it was the same to every other house I sell.

You know what's funny, even after everything that's happened I have trouble picturing the house in my mind. It was so much like all the others, so unremarkable.

For most of the morning it was the same as usual, I walked around the house for about 5 hours and by the end I'd walked around every room and opened every cupboard dozens of times. I promise you, I swear to you- that door was not there.

Then he came at the end of the viewings. The last appointment. He didn't give his name but I was absolutely sure he was not Mr Adrian Lonbardy. He was tall, maybe 6 feet, short black hair. His face was unthreatening but the way he stood so still at the door did unnerve me.

I asked if he was Mr Lonbardy and he said no, that Mr Lonbardy wouldn't be coming. So he was here instead. Its not unheard of for clients to send people in their place so I held out my arm for a handshake but he just looked at it and laughed. That's when I first started to think that something was wrong.

It's cause his laugh didnt- sound right. I don't know how to describe it but it wasn't a human laugh. Like a headache. I shoudlve stopped there and left but he'd already walked passed me and into the house.

I started to give him the sales pitch on reflex and decided that seeing as he was not actively threatening I'd give him a run down of the house. He was strange but I didn't want to deal with a complaint.

He followed me and his eyes were always looking where I pointed but he didn't seem to take any of it in. He didn't ask any questions either at least not till we reached the second floor. I walked into the first bedroom and started talking about its potential for a child's room but when I looked back he wasn't there.

I walked back into the landing and saw him looking at a new door. He asked me what was behind it but I stood there staring. It was a small, unremarkable door. Painted yellow with a black handle and it wasn't there before. I had been up on that landing dozens of times already and I definitely did not remember it. It wasn't like I hadn't noticed it you have to understand that it wasnt there.

It can't have been there it was impossible! I checked the floor plan and there was no door shown on it. It was a wall and there can't have been anything beyond it except empty air and a large door. I had seen that wall both inside and out over and over and there was no door. It was just a dark yellow door that couldn't have been there!

The man asked me again what was inside. I stood there, staring. I honestly don't know how long I stood there looking at it, the client said nothing and I'd forgotten he was there by the time I reached out and turned the handle. As soon as I did so the door swung open.

I didn't need to pull it, it opened slowly like it was keen for me to go inside. Beyond that door, where there should've been empty air. There was a long, windowless corridor. It was lit by lamps attached to the wall every 10 feet and the walls were painted over in a swirling green.

Running down the middle was a rug, black and thick that disappeared as the path gradually curved to the left. On the wall were what looked like mirrors but they weren't. They were paintings of that same corridor from various angles.

I don't remember going through the door, I just remember standing there and looking down it and then I remember feeling a surge of terror as the door closed behind me as the door clicked. I turned around but there was no door knob on this side, just a huge smooth mirror.

I saw myself stood in that corridor and it looked like I'd been crying for hours, I threw myself at that mirror over and over. It didn't open and neither did it crack. I took out my phone but all that was on the screen was another picture of the corridor.

So I started walking down, there was nothing else I could do. It dragged on and on, always to the left. Every once and a while there was another corridor turning to the right and at first I avoided these paths. I thought that if I took the corridor far enough would end somewhere.

Eventually I took a right turn after realising it couldn't make things worse. The branching ones were identical. Mirrors and paintings the same as usual. As I turned back I realised the left hand that led towards the door wasn't there anymore but instead another long corridor.

It definitely changed but I never noticed it switching I just noticed it hadn't been the same yellow as before. Based on the date of my appointment and the newspaper I found later I think I was in there for 3 days. I don't remember sleeping though, or feeling tired.

I had no food or water and I got very delirious but that was near the end. It didn't help that it was so hot in there. Though it often felt too cold. I had almost passed out in misery when I saw it.

It was stood way off in the distance, a long way down. It seemed almost human from a distance but as it got closer I saw it was anything but. Its body was thin and limp and when it moved it shifted like it was in rippling water.

The hands were swollen and bits of it jutted out at strange angles, it was moving towards me fast and all the pictures on the wall now showed this thing though each distorted it differently. But all of them showed the hands as huge and sharp.

I ran and I ran but it was getting closer and I could hear that weird laugh again. Then I saw it, a mirrored frame that did not contain the creature. I didn't know if it would help but it was either this or death so I threw myself at it.

Just like that I was out. I felt the cold night air on my face and it was raining. I screamed for about 5 minutes before someone came and helped me. I don't know what else to tell you.

I was hospitalised for a while and I spent a long time at home. Finally after the latest bout of nightmares I decided to come to you and tell you my story. Maybe you can make some sense of it."

Perhaps. Leave it with us we will try and find something.

"Y-you believe me?"

I- yes. Yes I do. One thing though, you say you couldn't remember the man's name.

"I think he told me but I just-"

Was it Vincent?

"Yes. Vincent, that was it! Do you know him?"

We might do. We'll get back to you soon Eret, thank you for your time.

"I'll leave you too it. Thank you."

-Door opens and closes with a squeak-

Darryl?

"Yes? Did you call?"

I just had a statement from someone that met your Vincent.

"Vincent? The distorted Vincent?"

The very same. I don't think we re recorded your statement yet did we?

"Do we need to."

It was one of the tapes that vanished. Well do you remember anything else? 

"I don't think so no."

What are you doing?

"Re-organising your discredited section. Since you've been back you've been very sloppy. Kinda pissing people off."

That's fair. Sorry. Let me know when youre finished.

"Will do."

-Door closes-

-Static heavily picks up-

_Do you even know they're lying to you?_

I'm sorry? Can I help you, this place is off limits?

_I disagree._

Who let you in here?

_Let? Ả̴̮̯̻̟̮̲͚͓̀̇̍̋̌̾͗̎̔̂͠h̷̻̬͔̩͎͚̥̅̑͗̒̏̃̇̄̾̐̈́͜H̶̱̯̱̣͍͔̻̫͍͓̘̫̗̩̥̉͊̄̈́̃̚͝a̸̡̜̞̙̬̣̦̍̎̈́̐̎̾̌̏̌̿͂̚ͅh̶̞̟͈̫͎̩̳̀͆͝ḁ̴̧͎͕̱̮̠̞̦͔̝̟͒͒̾͗͌̓͜H̶̡̢̨̰̞͓̹͚̍̄͗̈̔͂̅͊̽̆̚͘ā̵̛̛̛̻̘̩̔̓̉̍̈́͂͒̈ḥ̵͒̈́̔̿͂̕A̸̧̛̬̲̘̜̤͂̾̈̃̓̾̕͘̚͝h̴̢̅̿̋͆̎̓͐̚͝ã̴͇̳͙̣̘̗̫̬̫͇̘͎̊ͅͅA̸̧͈͒ḩ̵̡̛̬̙͇̰̝̞̯̳̰͑̓͛͝. I'm afraid that isn't how this works._

You're him, Vincent.

_That is a real name._

Are you here to kill me?

_No._

Then why are you here?

_I'm simply collecting what is mine Archivist. The one who entertains my domain._

Eret Williams? You own those hallways? 

_What a fascinating question, does your hand in any way own your stomach? In any case it doesn't matter, the wanderer had a brief respite but it's over now._

Well it's too late now? He's gone? 

_H̸̯͎̟͎̺͙͂̆̐̅̎͗̕ȩ̴̛̙͉͚̻̝͙̩̥̎̃̂̎̑̊̐͒̾̓̕̚͠h̵͍͐H̷̘̀e̷̩̭̺̖̫̟̭͙̱̰̜̟̎̾̿̄͑̕͘͜͜ͅH̵̨̡̗͚̪͕̉́͂̉̄̍̏̈̆e̶̡̢̛̛̼̗̫̰͚͔͍̼̹͉͕̋͛̎͐̈́͂̇̓͌̆̉͘̚Ȩ̷̬̮̭̠̠͖͐͗̊̈̒͝ͅë̸̡̢̥̠͚́̃͌̒͐͂h̴̛̠̗̟͖͇̟̰̦̹̖̩͓̏̒̿̓͌̓͛͂̐̕͝Ě̷̞̺̖͔͓̹͖͚͈͈̽̾̈́̽̿̏̊̐͘ͅ. Yes. Did you notice which door he left through?_

Yes. It- uh- wait- no there was-

_There has never been a door there Archivist, your mind plays tricks on you._

Let him go. 

_H̴̡͋̊̒̂̄̇̎͘A̸̯̋̉̋̋̀͆̓̈́̎͘͝͝͝h̸̛̛̤̭̎͌̓̾̋͋̃͠h̷̛̪͓͖͍͉̗̔͆̅͂̈͝A̴̧͍̳̪͔͎͈̤̮̫̯͈̠̩͉̐̂̉̏̎̂̓͒̃̾̚̕͠h̵̢̛̤̙͕͍̺͔̳̥̲̳̱͖̄̆͒̅̊̔͊a̶̞̟̬̗͇̱̥͇̺̖͕̤͉̜̒̅̈́͂͂̍̏͛̽̊̚͜Ã̵̡̛̮̫̤̙̫͚̘̣̟͈̳̒͒̂̐̿̑̍͊͜͜h̴̛̼͔̜̙͈̄̎̈́͗̈̔̉̈̅̈́̒̑̚͝h̷̛̩̹͚̤̦͈̼̤̟̣̟͙̞̋̓͒̋̓̉ͅH̶̡͖̪̰̝͊̊͛̇̌̉̇̋͛H̵̢̠̼͕̰̹̳͙͍̰̓̉̅̎̑a̷̘͓̜͉̣͍̲͇̝̣̳̤͍̐̆̈̏̊͗͊̇͠͝ͅh̸̡̳̰͔͉͈̠̤̦̗̋͊̎̍̎̈͋͗. No?_

Get him back here. 

_Are you going to attack me?_

-Sounds of fabric tearing-

Ah! Who the hell are you?! 

_I am not a who Archivist I am a what. A who requires a degree of identity I can't ever attain._

So, you're not Vincent? It's not your real name? 

_There is no such thing as a real name._

What are you talking about? 

_I am talking about myself. Its not something I'm used to doing so I'm sorry if I'm not very good at it._

You decided to appear down here and stab me anyway. 

_I wanted to talk to you. I intervened to save you before, I'm interested in what happens next._

Yes well thank you for that I suppose. You still haven't told me why you helped at all. 

_Hah. I'm usually neutral yes but, the loss of this place would've unbalanced the struggle too early. I'm keen to see how it progresses._

You make it sound like there's a war? 

_Then I will say no more. He wouldn't want me to tarnish your ignorance prematurely. Goodbye Archivist._

Wait- I-

-Static drops-

Vincent? Vincent? Uh- end recording.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello eret stans


	22. #48 to #51

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, Vincent's visit last week has been playing on my mind. What's his stake in this "struggle" he talks about. What even is he. Listening back over his visit I reheard something I missed during his initial visit.

His words were a warning to not trust Darryl, that he was lying about something, it is becoming rapidly apparent that I can trust nobody but out of all of them Darryl seems the least suspicious. I can't find evidence he even met Gertrude and his working here is fitting.

That said he did lose the tape about his experience. Maybe he's lying to me. Maybe Vincent was messing with my head. On another note I need to be subtle in my inquiries. Here is a recording of a short meeting Fundy Requested.

-Click-

"I don't enjoy having these meetings Clay."

Well I'm sorry you're compelled to Fundy. I assume you've had another complaint. 

"Yes."

Who from? Was I too rude to Vincent?

"Who's Vincent? No, it's from your team."

What?

"George and Zak have both approached me saying you've been spying on them."

Spying on the- of course not! No, I've just been worried about their mental health.

"Zak says you were watching his house."

Well that's just not true.

"Well what matters is your team thinks it is. I know finding Grians body hit you hard but you need to let it go. It isn't their mental health that's under scrutiny right now."

Fine. Is that all?

"Yes."

-Click-

I need to be more careful about the others noticing my investigations. Especially if I have further cause to watch their homes. More importantly though, Fundy moved to the top of my suspect list.

I wonder what he's hiding.

End Supplement.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, Tommy has refused to compromise his situation any further. I don't have access to the tapes so we have to rely on Zaks involvement with staff at the police record office. This is useful for inquiring information but it's too easily discovered. The last thing I want is for the Archives to be involved in personal drama.

Fundy Floris is a difficult man to pin down. He became head of the institute in 2003, taking over from James Wright, who ran the place from 73 till he passed away. It was a remarkably fast climb to the top as he only previously worked in Artifect storage. Perhaps he was simply that impressive.

The Fundy I know now is unmatched in paranormal knowledge and yet everything I found out doesn't fit with the man I know today. He graduated college with a third in PPE and I found an old gossip column that mentioned him as a stoner. Was he like that when he first came to work here?

The only person who worked here before he took over was Grian. Did he kill him because he knew something? If so, how can I prove it.

End Supplemental.

<-End Recording->

<-Begin Recording->

I'm sorry?

"Are you in trouble?"

What? 

"Well there was a police boy who came in here looking for you, the one who came to look into Grian."

Tommy? When?

"Yesterday, you were at physical therapy"

Did he say why?

"No, it's a bit weird really? I've seen him round a few times before I don't trust him."

Sorry, what?

"He just showed up, asked where you were and mumbled something before leaving. It was weird. He's weird."

You don't have a problem to the police do you Zak?

"Well you know I'm the finest cat burgler in all of Brumley."

Zak.

"Okay so seriously I don't get why he keeps coming out here outside of the investigation."

Hes uh- I'm helping him with the investigation off the record.

"Oh- oh! Say no more."

Zak what are you-

"Don't worry. Im cool, good work boss."

Oh Zak no I- he's years younger than me its-

"I'll go dig out what I can find on this case and get back to you."

That really isn-

-Door shuts-

Ah.

End Supplemental.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, I had a strange conversation with Darryl today. I've been doing some research into him but there's little to go on. Save that she worked in Artifect storage. Not much worth recording new in there by the way.

A new oak wardrobe light is unable to penetrate, a carved rock eye they keep that interferes with the video cameras and a nasty scalpel that's filled with disease no matter what they use to sterilise.

I stumbled across Darryl staring at that table again. I hid the recorder and turned it on unnoticed. Recording follows. 

-Click-

-High static-

Its fascinating isn't it? In the literal sense.

"Yes. Sometimes I can't pull myself away from it."

Given recent events I've been trying to figure out if it's a fractal.

"No. It isn't. It's more like a web."

I guess it has caught us in its own way.

"We aren't the first to be caught. Graham."

I thought that was whatever was crawling through his window. Unless you think they're linked.

"I doubt it. It didn't sound like the thing that sounded like it wanted to be pitifully bound to an object."

I suppose. We haven't seen any long limber stalkers so let's concentrate on the table.

"Agreed. If you'll excuse me?"

Of course.

-Clicks-

Odd but not alarming. I will discuss restricting his access to the table. I also found out where he goes on extra long lunch breaks.

It seems harmless but I'm baffled. Every few days he travels up to bakers Street to spend anywhere from 10 minutes to a full hour in Madamme Tousads Wax Museum.

End supplement.


	23. Exceptional Risk

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Phillip Brown, regarding his town at the prison Wakefield between 1990 and 2002. Original statement given April 9th 2004. Audio recording by Clay 9@(£#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins

How much do you know about the prison service?

Not much, I’d bet.

Maybe you’ve seen a few prison movies, think you know a bit about how it is in there. You’ve got to keep face and watch your back, right? After all, you never know who’s got a shiv with your name on it.

Well for a start, you’re probably thinking of American movies about American prisons, and I can’t speak to that. Maybe it is non-stop gang warfare over there. But in my experience, the biggest danger in a prison is and always will be boredom.

I say that like it’s some glib observation, but we work hard to keep it as boring as possible. The first hint of violence among the inmates gets smacked down. I worked as a prison officer in Her Majesty’s Prison Wakefield, or “The Monster Mansion”, as the press insists on calling it. It houses the real scum of this country. Class-A dangers, the lot of them, and it was always a point of pride to me that we kept that place quiet.

I mean, I say it like I had any real power, but I was just a grunt keeping an eye on a cage full of wild animals. I won’t even pretend I was proportional in my use of force. I mean, prison inspector would have been over that with me already, but the sort of things you have to have done to end up in Wakefield – well.

Let’s just say the suicide attempts far outnumbered the murder attempts.

And I never lost any sleep over that fact. Not at any of the inmates, I made sure of that.

After lockup at 7:00 p.m. sharp I made a point of keeping my wing dark and quiet. It helped that they were single cells of course, no worries about conversational violence between cellmates. But even then, I was careful to make it very clear that drawing my attention after lights-out was something they would regret.

I’ll admit, I was a real bastard when I worked there. Sometimes you need a bastard to keep an eye on the monsters. And back then I really thought that the murderous filth we were looking after were the closest thing this world had to real monsters.

I was wrong, of course.

I’d been working there for almost five years when Robert Montauk came to us. Now don’t get me wrong, we’ve had plenty of celebrity criminals passed through Wakefield over the years, but I can’t say it didn’t give me a slight chill to know that we were going to be keeping watch over the most prolific British serial killer of all time.

I mean, he killed 40 people, that’s a ridiculous number. I mean, maybe not in America where you have so many places to hide, but his nearest competition in this country barely reached half that, and he used to be a policeman. All told, you have the ingredients for a cocktail of posturing unrest and violence among certain quarters of the inmates.

He wouldn’t normally have gone to Wakefield as his crimes had no sexual element to them, but we were the only ones that had space for a prisoner needing that level of security and scrutiny.

He was a big guy. I wasn’t expecting that, to be honest. Usually with that kind of prisoner they’ve got her “you’d never know to look at them” sort of feeling, but Montauk looked like a killer. He must have been almost six foot six and built like a barge. His dark hair was cropped close to his scalp showing off a flat angular face.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the man was terrifying. When he entered the rec room for the first time, I could almost hear the deflating egos as a dozen would-be hoodlums thought better of trying to make a reputation by standing up to Robert Montauk.

Of course there’s always one and in this case it was Ivan Ilich, an aspiring Serbian gangster who decided to go after him, jumping him from the side.

Me and the other wardens had been waiting for something like this, but we were too slow to get there in time. Well, maybe we could have gone faster, but 40 murders… sometimes you want to look at what you’re up against.

Ilich was not a small man and nearly matched Montauk in height if not in weight, but there was an energy to Montauk – a tightness like a rubber band about to snap.

Ilich leapt forward with a shout and delivered a solid punch right into the other man’s kidneys, but it was as though he’d hit the pressure pad on a bear trap. With terrifying speed the hands snapped round, gripping the Serbian’s right arm.

There was a half moment of complete silence as everyone seemed to be holding their breath to see what Robert Montauk did next.

He brought his hands around with a violent twist, cleanly dislocating his assailants arm with a nasty pop, replacing the silence with a scream and a string of Slavic curse words. At this point me and the other screws broke it up. I got the unenviable task of taking the still-cursing Ivan Ilich own to get his arm treated.

I didn’t see Montauk again for some time. After that little incident he was immediately transferred over to F-block where he wasn’t going to be a danger to anyone but himself.

I’d occasionally hear rumors about him filtering through the other inmates, and there wasn’t a spooky story in Wakefield that didn’t have him at the center of it. Barely a week went by without some loudmouth nobody spreading word that he’d killed the guard or escaped, or been found dead in his cell with his heart ripped out.

It was never true of course. Not at that point.

I think most of it came from Dave Harrington on F-wing. He always loved to drop the fake gossip on new inmates and the old hands knew not to trust a word he said. It was 1998 when –

-Door Opens-

Hello?

Hey, I just wanted to–

Oh, hold on Tommy. 

-Click-

Sorry, can’t be too careful. Accidentally mentioned you on one of my earlier official recordings, and had to go back over it.

"Oh, sure. I’ve got another tape for you."

Fantastic. Here’s the other one.

"Was there anything on it?"

Oh, very much so. A Russian circus that – oh. But, uh, nothing relevant to Gertrude’s murder if that’s what you mean.

"That is what I mean."

Right. Sorry.

Have you had a chance to listen to any of them yourself?

"Well the precincts has exactly one tape player, and it exploded when I tried to put batteries in it. Put in a requisition for a new one, but that’s lost somewhere in the Met, and I haven’t had a chance to chase it up, so no."

Well, if you keep bringing them to me –

"It’s better than nothing, yeah. Anyway, I thought you could try this one next."

Alexandria?

"Hey, at least this one actually has a label. I figured you’re probably into old libraries and stuff-"

No, you’re right. Thank you, Tommy. Honest.

"Yeah. Oh, what’s the name of that helper of yours?"

Uh, George.

"No, no, the 'hot' one. He has scars like you but kind of manages to pull them off-"

George is plenty- well no I suppose he's more cute but- yes, Zak. 

"Yeah, what’s his deal? He gave me the weirdest grin when I came in just now and like… the thumbs up?"

I… I wouldn’t worry about it.

"No?"

... 

He thinks we’re sort of… together?

"Oh– Oh. Oh no. You know I’m no-"

Yeah I know, me neither, he just got it in his head –

"I mean you’re nice and all but you're a couple years older and-"

Yes– yes, no, I feel the same way.

"Right. I mean, I suppose it’s better he think that?"

I won’t tell if you won't? 

"Right. I’m… gonna go then."

Yes. See ya later Tommy. 

"Right."

Statement resumes.

It was in 1998 that I next came into regular contact with Robert Montauk.

The government had commissioned the construction of close supervision centers in prisons all over the country, and Wakefield was one of the flagship initiatives.

A good portion of F-wing was given over to our own CSC, soon to be known as the exceptional risk unit. It could only hold eight prisoners but they were to be the worst of the worst, kept under constant scrutiny and given no chance to harm anyone.

I was picked to be one of the officers transferred into the new unit. I don’t know if it was specifically because I had more inmate altercations on my record than any other prison officer at Wakefield, but given the intensity of the setup I’m sure it didn’t hurt my application.

Robert Montauk was an obvious choice for the exceptional risk unit. During his time in Wakefield he had been involved in several further violent incidents, and though he hadn’t yet killed anyone inside the prison, the higher-ups reckoned it was only a matter of time so in he went.

The CSC was not a nice place. Wakefield had had the budget to make it secure, but not to make it anything less than starkly utilitarian. The individual cells were cramped and claustrophobic, with almost no natural light filtering in from the outside. Oh, they still got their exercise but it was in bare metal cages.

We kept them separated from each other almost as much as we kept them from the rest of the prison. You must never underestimate how violent and desperate a trapped animal can become.

We were cruel to them, I’m not ashamed of that. If I were to tell you all the crimes of those monsters we kept in the EIU, you’d probably lose your lunch before I was halfway through the list. Keeping them beat down was the only way to make sure they behaved, and besides atonement is important.

I’ll admit though, I always had a soft spot for Robert Montauk. He never gave us any trouble. Away from the other prisoners he seemed too docile, almost eerily so sometimes.

Also – and it’s a small thing – but he never denied his crimes. Wakefield is one of those prisons where everyone is innocent and it gets so dull to hear their whining protestations day after day. Anyone who fully owned their crimes always went up in my estimation.

I mean we still beat him down on occasion, but not as bad as the others. After a year or two I kind of started to forget who he was, you know? The mystique of being Britain’s most successful serial killer just didn’t hold up when you have someone in your power like that. You forget any respect you might have had for them. And he never gave us any trouble.

In 2001 he started to get visitors, his daughter mostly.

Given that she hadn’t visited before, I’d guess she just turned 18. You get that a lot. Unaccompanied visits aren’t allowed under that age and plenty of inmates have kids living with overprotective guardians who refused to take them. So I assumed she was similar.

The visitor rooms in the main prison are quite nice, not so much in the exceptional risk unit. The dark, bare room like all of them, cut down the middle with a reinforced window. There were plenty of lights in there but somehow it always seemed gloomy.

I was on observation for a few of their father-daughter visits. She would talk about her life like her dad wasn’t a murderer, he would lie about how it wasn’t too bad in the prison, it was all very touching I’m sure.

Aside from his daughter there was only one other time that he had a visitor. It was six months before he died, late March 2002.

He was an older guy, I’d guess late 50s, wearing a well-tailored black suit and an expression of disgust.

When I brought Montauk, in his face fell and he went very pale. I’d help folks beat Robert Montauk a dozen times or more but I had never seen him look scared.

He sat down opposite the old man and they looked each other in the eye through the thick glass.

I think the visitor might have been blind. His eyes were cloudy but he had no cane or dog, and it didn’t seem to affect how he looked at Montauk.

Neither of them spoke.

The seconds turned into minutes and still they didn’t say a word. They just sat there, staring. Given where I work, it’s really something to be able to say that I’ve never seen two people who hated each other as much as Robert Montauk and that old man.

After a few minutes I was all but ready to drag him out but as I stepped forward the lights blew, all of them at once, leaving us in the dark.

I had Pete Gordo, the warden with me on visitor duty, fumbling for the handle on the door to get help or torches.

I was tense, ready to fight off Montauk if he decided to make a move, but instead a soft voice came from out of the darkness. I didn’t recognize it but I thought it sounded like it came from the old man. I don’t think he was talking to me.

“You didn’t think you could kill it for long, did you?”

That’s what it said.

Then Pete got the door open and a shaft of light poured in from the corridor.

I could once again see Montauk and the old man, sat there, motionless.

It didn’t seem like they’d moved an inch. Though as I went to take Montauk back to his cell I noticed that he was crying.

I didn’t mention it. I’ll be honest, I was kind of freaked out by the whole thing.

The next few months were quiet. Montauk seemed even more subdued than normal and often had to be goaded into exercising during his allotted time. The only point where he seemed normal was when his daughter came for her visits, and maybe that was just because he was already so used to lying to her.

That was the summer we had all the plumbing problems in the ERU, and the water kept going foul, so we were all kind of on edge.

But nothing really happened until it turned to autumn and November rolled around.

It was November the 1st. I remember because the date was read out so many damn times at the assorted disciplinaries that followed. The worst part of it is, I wasn’t even doing anything wrong that day.

I was working the late shift with Pete and we were having coffee in the break room. At least, I was having coffee.

Pete was swearing at the taps because the plumbing problem we had all had been assured was fixed was back and worse than ever. The taps were disgorging a jet of foul-smelling stagnant water.

I was laughing at him sipping my own perfectly adequate drink, when all the lights went off. It was more widespread than last time though. It seemed like the electricity had gone off altogether.

We stood there in the pitch-black waiting for the generator to kick in, or for whatever power problem this was to be fixed, but after a few minutes of silence and darkness it became clear that that wasn’t happening anytime soon.

In the distance we could hear the prisoners of the exceptional risk unit start to shout and holler. Their cells were locked, of course, there was nothing a power cut could do about that. But it was still up to us to keep order until the lights came back.

I had hoped that the other prison officers on shift would have come by to pick us up, but they were clearly busy elsewhere.

I called out to Pete, making sure he was still nearby as I fumbled in the locker for my torch. I finally found it and turned it on. The beam was so bright in the oppressive darkness that I had to blink away tears.

Using the light from mine, Pete found his own flashlight and together we headed out into the CSC.

We checked each cell in turn, lying to the prisoners inside about when the power would be back and sending them back to their beds with threats of violence. I didn’t see any of the other wardens around and was starting to get really nervous. When we had checked all the other cells, we went towards Robert Montauk’s.

The torch beams shot out in front of us, but as they fell upon the door to his cell, something was wrong.

I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at for a second, and then I realized that his cell door was open but the torch light wasn’t reaching the inside.

As it hit the threshold it just stopped, a clear and distinct line of darkness beyond which nothing could be seen. From inside there came the wet sound of tearing and a low moan of pain.

I wanted to run, but instead I took a step forward.

My torch died. Pete’s went off as well and we just stood there, terrified, unable to see a thing.

The sounds were no longer coming from inside the cell and that didn’t really as much as it might have.

About 15 feet behind me I heard Pete fumbling around, calling out my name. I was about to reply, tell him to stay where he was, when I heard something that froze my blood.

Pete said, “There you are.”

He was not touching me.

Almost immediately there was a growl from the darkness. It was throaty in a roar, but at the same time sounded almost musical. He screamed. I heard him fall to the floor.

It was at that moment that the lights came back on.

We were alone.

I ran to do a quick circuit of the CSC that the other prison officers arrived, but there was no one else there. Apparently there’d been some problems with the doors and they hadn’t been able to get to the main ERU cells.

Pete was on the ground when I returned, though he seemed physically unharmed.

It was one of the other wardens that found what was left of Robert Montauk.

I took the fall for it.

They didn’t try to make out like I had killed him, just that it had happened on my watch and due to my negligence. They’d been trying to push me out ever since the prison inspector had written the CSC up for excessive use of force the year before.

They really threw the book at me. “Gross incompetence.” It’s a bitter phrase to say out loud. What was I supposed to tell them, a monster made of darkness murdered him?

Pete was no help. He handed in his notice two hours after the lights came back on. I didn’t even get a chance to speak to him asked what had happened, he was just gone.

I don’t really have anything more to say about it. It was a clearly paranormal incident that led to the end of my career and it’s not fair.

Statement Ends

Prison records are hard to acquire however due to the small number of inmates held in the close supervision centre does change things, small information can be identifiable so they keep these under harder wraps.

Beyond that, many of the prison records were not digitised and Zak hit something of a dead end. Darryl did manage to find the visitor record for 2002 for the whole of Wakefield. I took some searching but I found the mystery old man.

The name given is Maxwell Rayner. George didn't have much luck tracking down Mr Brown. According to Caroline Ink, his ex wife, she left after he was pushed further into alcoholism and he became abusive towards her and her son.

She did receive a letter from him in 2009, asking for reconciliation but she never replied. George said the letter was post marked from Ireland but he couldnt find him.

What is this thing that stalked Robert Montauk for so much of his life. What's its connection to Rayner. Were they summoning it? Worshipping it? Whatever the case Montauk earned its anger.

It is worthwhile to get more torches for the Archive.

End Recording.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, I confronted Darryl about the wax museum. It was too weird to pass on. I tried to pass it off as seeing him on accident. I doubt he bought it but he did give me an answer.

He has a new boyfriend, or so he claims, that he likes to get lunch with him. I feel that challenging him to produce such boyfriend would ruin the trust between us. No luck with any of the other leads but at least I have another of Gertrudes tapes.

The secret to her death is on one of them, it must be. What else is strange though, I may be wrong but I swear Darryl and Zak were dating. They act the same as usual I doubt there was an argument. Maybe they were never dating in the first place but the love Zak holds in his eyes is-

Clear.

End supplement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took 3 days to update. I got so confused about what they put importantly at the end of each episode cause of the supplement. I didn't even know this had a middle intrusion bit with Tommy. I'll try and get more done cause I ended up getting 54 done before this one.


	24. The Trophy Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im sorry this took me so long to update. I'm doing case #54 and #53 in a swapped order because I did the start and end audios for #54 before realising #53 should be a grian statement. So grian statement do be coming up next, I apologise in advance. Most of the statements that talk about war were personally very boring.

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Alexander Scaplehorn regarding his evaluation of The Trophy Room taxidermists in Barnet. Original statement given June 23rd 2013. Audio recoding by Clay 9@(#£, Head Archivist of The Magnus Archives.

Statement Begins.

I try not to judge on appearances.

I have a certain sympathy with those who find themselves instinctively reviled by those about them. Not simply because I myself am what you might generously describe as “odd-looking”, but because my career has taken me down the path of working for the Inland Revenue, and you should see the way people recoil from you when they find out you work for the taxman.

So I try to have a little bit more depth than that and give everyone a chance, so was with what could be described as an aggressively open mind that I made my way to undertake an inspection of The Trophy Room – a taxidermist’s shop near Woodside Park in Barnet.

I have never been in any way attracted to the idea of taxidermy aside from a few interesting examples in the Natural History Museum, but I was quite certain it didn’t deserve its ghoulish reputation. Of course, I was inspecting it to ensure it wasn’t being used for money laundering purposes, so if it turned out it was involved in criminal activity I would be quite justified in any bad opinion, I might care to indulge, but I didn’t want to be premature

You see, the Trophy Room had been a staple of Woodside Park for some thirty years, but like many niche interest shops, seemed to see little real business. Its taxes were all in order, but there were very few regular customers and most of the money that kept it in the black came from occasional large transactions that seemed somewhat excessive for the items being purchased – all hallmarks of money laundering.

You’d be surprised how many businesses that you pass every day on the street are being used in a similar manner. Those shops that never seem to be open, or who cater to such a specific market you wonder how they can break even. Well, often they can’t without some illicit assistance.

Now I’m not the police, I have no power to arrest anyone revoke any licenses or even issue a fine without a good deal of hassle, that all comes later and from other people. My job is just to discuss their compliances and policies to prevent money laundering and examine their transactions to confirm that they’re not too suspect. I find it fascinating but I am keenly aware that the majority of the people I inspect do not share my opinion.

As soon as I arrived at The Trophy Room I could tell that it was going to take some time.

The shop had that layer of grime that only accumulates after a business has been in place for decades without change, the painted golden letters were now a dirty brown and the edges of the olive green awning were streaked with muck. The stuffed tiger in the window was so faded by the sun that I had to do a double-take to check it wasn’t a lion, so faint with the stripes. Its eyes were glassy and one of its teeth seemed to have broken off.

Even so, there was something about the curve of its mouth that drew me in, and I got so lost looking at it that I quite jumped when the bell above the door sounded its jarring clang.

I looked up to see a surprisingly young man standing there. I had expected some crusty old gamekeeper type judging by the look of the place, but instead this fresh-faced 20-something held out his hand for me to shake. I did so. The hand was firm and very dry.

I asked him if he was the owner, and he said he was, introducing himself as Daniel Rawlings. Apparently the place had belonged to an old friend of his father’s, who didn’t have much in the way of family, and when he passed away a few years before Daniel had inherited it.

I asked him if he was even interested in taxidermy and he just shrugged and gestured me inside.

The smell hit me as soon as I crossed the threshold. It was so thick you could almost taste it, like something had murdered a lily and it was rotting under the floorboards. Dreadful smell. I turned to see Daniel lighting a cigarette as if in acknowledgment of the odor. He just shrugged again and said it was chemicals, casting an eye over the assembled collection of taxidermied wildlife.

It was then that I became aware of them. Hundreds of glassy dead eyes staring at me from all directions. A huge moose in front of me, a shelf full of squirrels along the wall, unmoving ravens attached to an old electric chandelier, and dozens and dozens of fish mounted on plaques or sealed in fake tanks.

Fur, feathers, scales, every manner and type of dead skin surrounded me, each frozen in uncanny stillness as though they were trapped in a world where time had simply stopped. Everything except their eyes of course. Their eyes had never been alive and they all seemed to stare in my direction, so that to look too close at any of them was to gaze into that unseeing glass.

I took a moment to compose myself and try to remember that I had made a decision to not judge the shop or its owner based on the fact that many consider taxidermy unsettling. I could see myself becoming one of these people and I fought very hard against the feeling of wrongness that seemed to be trying to worm itself into my mind.

I forced myself to pay Daniel some vague compliment about the variety of his pieces as he lit another cigarette. I considered mentioning the smoking ban but that wasn’t really why I was there, so I just started talking about money laundering instead.

He nodded and said he’d had the letter announcing the inspection and had got all the accounts and transactions for the past few years ready for me, he explained that as he’d only taken over the business very recently he wasn’t aware of much in the way of anti-money laundering policies or procedures. This was music to my ears, as there’s very little I enjoy more than taking an engaged new business owner through the basics and in a few minutes I’d forgotten all the glassy eyes that seemed to follow me around the room. (At least mostly.)

Daniel seemed remarkably interested when I outlined basic checks in due diligence, but it wasn’t the first time. People, especially new business owners, tend to sit up and take notice when HMRC turns up for a visit. I mean, I try not to exploit my position, but people take a visit from the taxman very seriously and it can produce some wonderfully attentive audiences.

Daniel didn’t seem panicked or worried though, simply intrigued. He asked all the right questions and was always ready with a good example for any of the more abstract aspects of the discussion. All in all he was a real pleasure to discuss money laundering with. I’d even stopped noticing the smell after a while, though I’d become aware of it again whenever he started another cigarette, something that usually happened almost immediately after he finished his last one. I can’t even imagine what his lungs must have looked like.

The only thing there was a touch awkward was that he seemed determined to avoid eye contact, looking at the floor, or the taxidermied animals, but never directly at me. It was a little bit disconcerting, but I have a cousin with autism so it wasn’t an entirely new situation to me.

Eventually the discussion ended and Daniel talked through some of the potential policies he was going to put in place. They actually seemed a bit excessive given that he was the only person currently employed at the Trophy Room, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell him to be less careful.

I then asked if I could have a look at his books, and he nodded again and took me through to the backroom.

The office behind the main shop was small and very clean. Most of the space was taken up by a large oak desk, and I could see another door leading through to what seemed to be a workshop judging by the tables and bags of sawdust.

Daniel handed me his account books, bank records, and receipts and left me to it. None of it had been digitized and I could tell it was going to take me a long time to get through it all. The smell was fainter here though, so it wasn’t quite as dreadful as it might have been.

There was taxidermy in this room as well, though different to the ones out front. Hung along the back walls were pelts and treated animal skins. They looked very old. Some I recognised as a Native American or African in origin, and one seemed so old I was worried to even breathe near it in case it collapsed into dust.

On top of the desk, pressed up against the wall was a mounted hare in a small waistcoat. It reminded me of the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, although its fur was faded and now stained a faint yellow. I found its face a bit more unsettling than the others though I couldn’t tell you why, and I tried not to look too closely at it as I went through the shop’s records.

It didn’t look like there was any money-laundering going on, which was a relief. The prices that people were occasionally paying for the stuffed creatures were very high, but I’m by no means an expert on the industry and there didn’t seem to be anything else suspicious in the books.

I did wonder the sort of people he was selling to though.

From the back room I watched four customers enter over the course of the day. In each case I watched as they got more and more unnerved before finally fleeing back out the door, trying to rationalize their fear. I sympathized.

It was almost closing time when Daniel came back to check on me. I gave him the good news. He didn’t seem particularly relieved but told me he was glad to hear it. Then he laughed and asked if I knew how honored I was. I didn’t understand.

He told me that I was sat here among some of the oldest skin in the world. That was how he phrased it. It put me a bit on edge and I cast a nervous glance towards the workshop before reminding myself that I was keeping an open mind about his strange profession.

Daniel started to go through the pieces on display. Buffalo skin from North America, jaguar from the South, a wolf pelt from the early Middle Ages. The hare, he said, had been part of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and it helped drive Victorian England mad for the craft.

I didn’t like the emphasis he put on “mad” when he said that.

Finally he pointed to the oldest of the pelts. He told me it was gorilla skin from Carthage, brought by Hanno in the 5th century BC, and it might just be the oldest piece of taxidermy in the world.

To be honest I didn’t believe him. Even if a gorilla’s hide could be preserved for more than two millennia, it seemed an unlikely thing to be found in the back of a shop in Barnet. It was clearly very old though, and I didn’t challenge him on it.

I was just about to make my excuses and go when the bell rang out at the front of the shop, and a pair of obnoxious Cockney voices started to call out for Daniel. His face went blank at this and he asked me to excuse him one second, abruptly leaving me in the back room alone.

I heard the men say something about unloading a van and then the bell rang again, taking Daniel with it. I was alone.

I was just packing up and making some final notes for my report when I heard something. It was muffled but definitely seemed to be words. It sounded like it was coming from beneath the floor. I looked and saw a ring pull connected to a small door I hadn’t noticed, which I assumed led to a basement.

The sound came again. I cast a look into the main shop to see if Daniel had returned, but it was quiet.

I knew opening the door was a stupid thing to do. I can’t imagine a single scenario where it would have ended well for me, but the whole place was so strange that part of me couldn’t resist seeing how deep the rabbit-hole went, if you’ll pardon the joke.

So I opened the door.

It did indeed have a flight of stairs disappearing down into what seemed to be a basement. If there was a light switch I couldn’t see it. It was impossible to see anything beyond the first dozen steps or so. The light that filtered through from the dim bulb behind me did illuminate one thing though.

A face.

I couldn’t make out any details but it was pale and swayed ever so slightly from side to side. The body below it was shadowed and hidden but it seemed to stare up at me as it moved.

It spoke, the cadence identical to what I had heard through the wooden door.

“We’ve got one down here. Come on, I’ll show you.”

It was so flat, almost mechanical. It felt about as much like genuine speech as the wind flowing through a cracked rock sounds like a flute being played. Which is to say they may sound almost identical, but only one of them is made by a living human. I started to say something, to call out, but my voice died in my throat slightly as the face retreated back into the basement.

“We’ve got one down here. Come on, I’ll show you.”

I turned and walked very briskly into the main shop. I was now fully terrified and could feel the cold sweat dripping off my forehead. In the doorway stood Daniel. He asked if I was alright with a smile that made my stomach drop, and at last he looked me in the eyes.

I recognized the glassy stare. The same eyes that gazed at me from a hundred sawdust filled sockets around the room.

When they all began to move I nearly broke down. If I had, I have no doubt that I would be dead or maybe far worse. Instead I had a sudden rush of adrenaline and charged into Daniel, knocking him sprawling to the floor in surprise. It was like hitting a sandbag.

His two Cockney friends were too slow to grab me before I was off down the road. I may not look it, but I can move it a fair pace when I need to, and I did so for almost an hour before I finally felt safe enough to stop.

I was very lucky, you know. I had the foresight to gather all my notes before I opened the basement door. It meant I didn’t have to return, I could simply write them up a glowing report and never think about it again.

Save for giving you my statement of course. And that’s exactly what I did. After all, whatever all that other stuff was, they weren’t laundering money.

Statement Ends.

It was with some fear that I discovered that The Trophy Room was still in business. Still under the ownership of Daniel Rawlings still. We never seem to get this chance where we can investigate something that is still active.

However, given the events detailed here I had some reservations about sending anyone to investigate. I may not entirely trust my assistants but I love- I do care for them. Eventually Darryl volunteered.

I warned him it was dangerous but he seemed very keen. Turned out to be nothing. Daniel had let him into the basement with much ease and there was no figure in there.

Nore any obvious weirdness to any aspects of the shop. Daniel denies the arrival of two cockney delivery men but I don't need to spell out my suspicions. Theres nothing we can do if he doesn't want to talk.

He also denies being the same Daniel Rawlings who disappeared in Edinburgh 2006. He allowed Darryl to take a photo of him and I compared it to old pictures of the Daniel who disappeared. It's the strangest things.

They're different heights, different builds but their hair is identical. Their eyes however are not. I find it hard to credit that they're the same person. Another dead end.

End Recording.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, I broke into Grians flat. I discovered his home had not been resold so I talked to the agent and he was paid up fir the next 6 months so they hadn't cleared it out.

So I broke in. It wasn't easy and I heard sirens shortly after but I got away with it. I learnt a few things. First thing being Grian lived a minimalistic life, nothing in the kitchen but tea bags and there was a single bookshelf filled with books on history. Judging on the bag I found near by he got rid of them after reading them.

He didn't own a telivision but I found a laptop charger. The indication he may have owned a computer is rather high on my list of priorities now. His room did give me little information though, aside from disproving my initial impression of him was very inaccurate.

I looked through a handful of books on her shelf and they were very well taken care of except for the exception of the books with faces on them. Their eyes had been cut out. Very carefully removed.

End Supplement.


	25. Children Of The Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So The Magnus Archives came off hiatus today, as I go into school. So I wanted to update this today. The new episode really got me fucked up tho. Anyways me doing statements out of order again cause I'm unorganised be like.

<-Recording Begins->

Continued statement of Trevor Herbert, regarding his latter years of vampire hunting. Original statement given July 10th 2010, Audio recording by Clay @9#(#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Note, several pages were missing from the file, around the time that he apparently did not die of lung cancer in the Institute.

Statement Resumes.

She died in the end.

Sad old thing but she didn’t deserve that. Always wondered what would have happened if I’d gotten there a bit sooner.

Trouble is, once they’ve really got their teeth into you you’re as good as dead even if they don’t drain you. Gushing on the floor or bloating a vampire’s belly doesn’t make much difference to the poor fool bleeding out.

I often wondered if I was mad, you know. I mean, no one else seems to have seen these things, and I found plenty across my life. Perhaps I just got the smell of them.

Like, no one else ever really got away and my early escape from Sylvia MacDonald gave me a sense that could pick them out.

There’s a sharpness to them. They’re hunters. But over the years I’ve become a hunter as well and maybe predators recognize each other. All I know is, these days I can almost smell the blood coming off them.

That’s not to say I can’t be wrong though. I can be very wrong indeed.

I found Alard Dupont in the summer of 1982 and murdered him shortly afterwards. I used the word murder here, where I have not before, because he was the only one I’ve killed I know to have been human.

In most ways I regret his death, but there is a certain comfort to it. If I was just a serial killer with a hallucination I don’t see why my mind wouldn’t have made Dupont vampire as well.

The fact that I was able to kill normal people reassures me that the creatures I hunt are real. Do you understand?

That’s not to say that the death of Alard Dupont wasn’t the result of several extremely bad decisions on my part. In the early 80s, I was deep in the grip of my twin addictions. As I mentioned, after a while the hunt became an addiction of its own. Of the two I have always found heroin the easier one to quit.

Heroin is calm. It’s a small chunk of peace in a world that’s full of nothing but hard edges. It’s hard to put that down permanently, but the hunt…

The hunt is a purpose. It’s not just a way to get through the day, it’s a reason for there to be a day at all.

I tried to give it up for a while after Dupont but it burned in me far deeper than any hitch I got when I was clocking.

Back in ‘82 though those addictions were running pretty much unchecked. It had been several years since I’d last found a vampire and every waking moment I wasn’t high was spent in keen lookout for anything suspicious.

I was in bad shape physically. I’d acquired an infection from injecting between my toes, which would eventually hospitalized me and lead to my losing two of them, though I luckily kept the foot. At that point though it just slowed me to a limp and caused me a reasonable amount of pain.

Perhaps if I’d been faster, able to keep up with Dupont more easily, I would have realized my mistake. Perhaps if my mind hadn’t been so fogged with brown I might have beaten it out, or perhaps if I hadn’t been so dead eager to kill another vampire any of these might have saved him. Maybe even if he’d had a name that didn’t make me think of Dracula.

But none of those things were the case, so dwelling on them is pointless.

I don’t know if Dupont was technically a mute or not. I’ve had no real experience with the condition and he didn’t seem to have any problems with his hearing.

Either way I never saw him speak, which by now I’m sure you know is what I would consider a significant warning sign for vampirism.

A friend of mine I shared a shelter with some weeks before, and who shared a similar weakness for narcotics, had mentioned how amazing it was that his dealer was always able to know exactly what he was after without either of them saying.

In retrospect I should have realized that it didn’t exactly match the vampires I’d met before, who’d never displayed any sort of mind-reading, but I was aching for a killer.

The kid who told me this was a weird one. Must have been about nineteen years old, told everyone his name was Stanley Kubrick. He was always making references to his film career, and I was never able to figure out if it was actually his real name that he happened to share with the director, or if it was just some weird joke he was really committed to.

What struck me about him more than that, though, were the scars on his neck.

I later discovered they were from a dog attack when he was younger, but at the time I was convinced they were connected to Dupont so I found were allowed Dupont made his handovers at Piccadilly Gardens and I started to watch.

He was surprisingly brazen about it – sat there on a park bench for hours smoking or reading some magazine or other. I’ve never seen a vampire read a magazine before, but I had seen them pantomime watching television or reading a book to better blend in, so it didn’t raise any suspicions for me.

Then came the moment that fully convinced me I had to kill Dupont.

As he sat there on the bench two policemen walked past me heading towards him. They took no notice of me, nobody notices a tramp.

But as they walked up the path towards the figure on the bench one of the police nudged his partner and gestured towards him. They clearly considered him suspicious and began to walk over.

As they got close though Dupont looked up and made eye contact with them.

They stopped just for a moment and he nodded gently. The policeman looked at each other, turned, and walked away.

That was all I needed to be sure of what he was.

The idea I have come to since then, that the two police officers were simply on the take and hadn’t immediately recognized him, didn’t occur to me until much later.

It was an overcast day and it seems to me that Dupont was keeping in the shadows just as I thought he would. I kept watching as he made a few more transactions.

I was craving a hit of my own by that point. There was a much more intense rush I was chasing just then and it pushed all thoughts of junk to the back of my mind.

Eventually evening fell and I watched Dupont rise from his bench and make his way down to the town center, keeping downwind of him and sticking to the shadows. Obviously the darkness would be no impediment to him spotting me but I’d learned that, inconspicuous as a homeless man might be, it’s still always best to be seen by as few witnesses as possible.

I figured he was heading towards a nightclub or dance, a favorite haunt of the vampire since the loud music makes their lack of speech that much easier to hide. I was right in as far as he headed towards the Hacienda, one of the loudest clubs in Manchester. It wasn’t as notorious then as it would later become, in fact I think it had only recently opened when all this happened. But even at its worst it would probably have drawn the line at allowing me entrance given the state I was in.

So I watched Dupont head inside, adopting my camouflage of softly asking passersby for change and waited.

It was about two hours later that he emerged, another man following close behind him. I didn’t recognize them, I mean there’s no reason I should have, but Dupont’s new friend was almost as big as he was.

Vampires tend to go for the smaller victims, those less able to defend themselves, should the initial surprise of their attack not be enough. This one really looked like he could take care of himself. Still, as far as I was concerned he had no idea what was about to happen to him. As Mr. Dupont led him down a nearby alley, I hurried after them.

I was quiet as I limped through the rubbish that covered the alleyway and I silently drew my trusty hammer. After a minute they turned in to a doorway and took out a key. The door opened and they both stepped inside.

I had a sudden alarm at the thought of getting locked out and being unable to reach him. Forgetting stealth, I grabbed the door and flung it open. They turned to face me.

I charged him with a cry, slamming the hammer into Dupont’s shoulder and knocking him to the ground with a sickening crack.

I will never forget the moment I heard Alard Dupont scream.

There was such a piercing sound and something I’d never expected. In a moment everything I’d built up in my head over the past couple of days shattered and I felt a sudden panic at what I’d done. What I was doing.

His friend screamed as well and started to run back out the door. I don’t know if he got a good look at me. Given the police never came around to question me I guess not.

Dupont was still screaming, that horrid sound overriding all other thoughts. Blood was streaming from his face where it had hit the ground and I didn’t know what to do. I had to get out of there, but that noise was too much.

I couldn’t focus, couldn’t do anything, so I hit him again. Hard. In the head. And then he was quiet, and everything was horribly still.

He just lay there.

I have never felt anything like the shame and disgust I felt at that moment.

I tried to burn his body more out of habit than anything else, but it didn’t really take and I fled out into the street before the police arrived.

After that I spent over a decade in a very serious spiral. I don’t remember much of it, except that I spent most of it so high that looking back I’m genuinely astounded I never OD’d. I only snapped out of it in ‘96 when a chance encounter with a creature that called itself Hannah Edwards led to my saving a young woman from becoming its dinner.

I won’t bother with details. It was very similar to my hunt for Jane Lewis except that the victim made it out alive this time.

I wonder why it is that I only ever seemed to find them just before they attack. It can’t be that they spent every night feeding, the world would be a bloodbath.

Maybe they just blend in better when they’re not on the hunt and I don’t spot them. Or maybe they hibernate. It’s not a question I think I’ll ever be able to answer, but it does mean that there is always an urgency to the hunts that has for the most part stopped me doing much investigation into them.

Hannah was my fifth confirmed vampire and the last one, assuming I don’t find another before the cancer takes me.

I really considered myself retired, resting after a life spent defending the world from the darkness. Because that’s what I thought it was, you know. Vampires were what lurked in the dark. The only thing that lurked in the dark.

Last year though, just before my diagnosis, I met something that made me rethink this.

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that winter is a hard time to be homeless. Doesn’t matter how many times you’ve done it, when that first cold wind blows through you it’s like some awful death coming to you.

The last one was really bad. A bunch of the shelters I normally hit up had closed up shop and those that were left tended to fill up fast.

I do pretty okay given I’m a well-known face and all that but I still felt the pressure to scrape enough cash together to secure my spot early. Even then there’d be a couple of times a week that I still ended up in the cold.

My old bones don’t do so well at that these days, so I was keeping quite a close eye on the comings and goings around the night shelters of Manchester, and after a few weeks I started to notice something strange.

Several times at a couple of different shelters I watched one of the sleepers get up in the middle of the night, gather their possessions, and walk out into the freezing streets of the city. To see it happen once would have been strange but to see it happen several times was surreal. I was sober at the time so I couldn’t even pass it off as a trick of the mind.

Even stranger, every time it happened, within 10 minutes a woman would walk in and take their place. It was the same one every time. She must have been about 40, and slender, though her clothes bulged a bit in odd places. Her face was lined from what I could recognize as a hard life and a thin layer of grime matted her hair.

She looked pretty normal for the place, and I could even write off the distant, neutral expression as the sort of trauma all too common among my people. That’s why I didn’t pay her any mind the first time it happened, or the second.

When I noticed it happening a third time I finally started to pay attention, though I didn’t approach her immediately.

I did ask about her the following morning but even the staff didn’t seem to know anything. I decided to keep a lookout and if she turned up again I would confront her.

Well, she did.

It was late January when it happened, about 2:00 in the morning. Just when the night was at its coldest. I saw one of my fellow sleepers get slowly out of bed. His name was Craig, I think. I didn’t know him well, he was a seasonal drifter and we’d only occasionally crossed paths.

Well, he walked out without a sound gathering up his belongings quietly and leaving an empty bed.

I waited wide awake, hand on my knife, breathing steady. Sure enough, a few minutes later, in she walks, no backpack or gear of any sort, and sat on Craig’s bed.

I stood up and walked towards her. As soon as she saw me her posture changed and she became defensive, although the expression on her face and never changed from that blankness.

I started to introduce myself and ask how come she was taking over Craig’s bed when she locked eyes with me, and the weirdest sensation began to flow through me. I wanted to leave. It wasn’t like with a vampire where I would feel like I’d been spoken to, this was just a sudden awareness of my own desire.

I’ve been sober for three years at that point but I felt like I desperately wanted to get high, and I knew that the best place to get some was out in the night.

Looking back I think it might have been my own mind rationalizing the way I felt my will being tugged out of the room, but it was still very powerful. If I hadn’t had a lifetime’s experience identifying and fighting off the effect of the vampire’s gaze I probably would have done it too. But I did, so I stood my ground.

There was a long pause as that woman gazed levelly at me.

Then she broke into a run through the door and out. I followed. Didn’t matter to me whether she was a vampire or not, there was something wrong and I wanted to find out what was going on.

I chased her out into the road. It was cold and still and if anyone saw us they didn’t make a sound.

She ran strangely, more like a spasm, smooth steps, and her arms shifted in weird ways as she moved. I’m not as spry as I once was and my lungs were obviously shot but I managed to keep pace with her.

I could feel it in my blood. It was a hunt and I always felt stronger on a hunt.

Finally I got close enough to grab her by the arm. My fingers locked around her elbow, and then they sort of sunk inside. They didn’t go through the skin or anything but it sort of shifted beneath my fingers like when you squeeze an uncooked sausage.

I could feel movement from inside the arm itself. It wasn’t a vampire but it definitely wasn’t human.

With this other arm it took a wide sweeping swing at me, but I was prepared and ducked below the flailing punch.

I got my knife to try and threaten the thing, maybe get it to answer some questions, but I misjudged the draw and ended up slashing it slightly across its stomach. It wasn’t a deep cut or a long one but apparently it was enough.

A whole body began to shudder as tiny shapes began to stream out of the wound.

Spiders.

Thousands and thousands of spiders.

She opened her mouth at last, as if to scream and more poured out. Tens of thousands of skittering legs and evil little eyes. I screamed and started to back up as the dark shapes pooled around her feet and spread out in a twitching circle.

For a second I was worried they were coming for me but then they just scurried off into the shadows and crevices of nearby buildings, until the street was empty of everything except this woman.

She was still standing upright, but from the open mouth, I could see that her body was completely hollow, save for a few cobwebs that I could just make out under the streetlights.

I ran the hell away and that’s the last creature I encountered.

That’s my whole story. You’re welcome to it.

When I thought it was just vampires about, I might have given you people as miss as a bunch of kooks. But if there’s other stuff around out there… maybe you know more about it than me.

And maybe you could use a bit more information on vampires.

It’s a shame I’m on the way out.

I will miss the hunt.

Statement Ends.

Well this is certainly a surprise. George informed me that Mr Herbert passed away after making his initial statement so its rather a shock to find this misfiled addition, even if it is partially incomplete.

What's more, checking the hospital and death records I can't find any record of Mr Herbert's death. I don't know how he could be alive after 6 years of untreated late stage lung cancer, and yet. Alard Duponts death matches the details given in the statements.

As for the spider person, the only proof of its existence seems to be that I am far too unlucky for it to be an old tramps hallucination.

I need to talk to George.

End Recording

<-Recording Ends->

Sit down.

"What is-"

Sit. Why did you lie to me about Trevor.

"What?"

Why did you tell me he was dead.

"Who's Trevor?"

Trevor Herbert, the tramp, the vampire hunter! You told me he died.

"But I mean he did didn't he?"

Apparently not.

"Oh well uh, sorry."

Sorry?!

"I mean I never actually met him, I just heard the researchers and I sworn that he heard that he died."

Oh so thats it, just a misunderstanding?

"Yes? Why are you taking this so perso-"

Because you keep lying to me George!

"About what?"

I don't know, but you are!

"Where did you get that?! Have you been going through the bins?"

It was in the old document room, where you used to sleep. 'If the others found out I've been lying' lying about what, George?!

"I- look just forget about it, please."

I can't forget about it, I can't trust a word you say, not about this and not about Trevor!

"Clay, jus-"

GeOrgE!

"Okay- okay just promise you won't fire me?"

Fire y- fine.

"I- I lied on my CV."

What.

"I don't have a masters in parapsychology, I don't even have a degree. When I was 16 my mum she had- she had some problems and I dropped out of schools and I had to leave to support her. I couldn't get any jobs so I started to lie on my applications, sending them out to anywhere. My lie got me an interview with-"

-Clay chuckles-

"-Fundy, I got a job here and most of my employment details are made up, I'm only 24."

Right- right uh, I believe you.

"Why are you smiling?"

Um- yes I- I won't mention it to Fundy. Just between us.

"So you don't mind?"

To be quite honest George I'm really rather relieved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> George not going to higher education seems weird cause its George but I assure you he's still very intelligent. Even if his mother left him with some baggage.


	26. Personal Space

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Carter Chillcot, regarding his time spent in isolation aboard the Daedalus. Original statement given April 4th 2009, audio recording by Clay @9£(#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute.

Statement Begins.

We’re all alone out there.

I know the statistics. How big the universe is, the probabilities and proximities and the promises of other beings out there among the stars, but I’ve been there. There’s nothing. Nothing but empty, uncaring void, lacing dead worlds and dead stars all together like a tapestry of lonely meaninglessness.

Humans have existed for the smallest sliver of a fraction of a moment in the existence of the universe, and we will be extinguished just as widely. And when we are at last gone forever into the quiet emptiness of death, there will be nothing left but the cold universe.

And nothing shall mark our passing because there is nothing to do so.

Dismiss me if you wish to. Take comfort in your escapist fantasies of aliens and visitors from other worlds, but there’s no proof I can give you beyond the testimony of one who has spent so very long staring into that black and empty infinity and knowing, truly knowing, what it means to be floating and forsaken in an empty universe.

I knew isolation experiments could be rough when I signed up. I’m not some naive fool who thought he’d endure a few quirky side effects for science. No, I’m an astronaut, so I do my research. When I was picked for the project, a long-term isolation study set in conditions of low Earth orbit, I read up on as many previous cases and similar experiments from the past 30 years, familiarizing myself with side effects and likely psychological hurdles.

It was daunting to say the least. I wasn’t keen to experience some of what the previous tests seemed to promise what happened to my mind, but I didn’t feel like I had much choice. I’d had my application to the International Space Station floating in limbo for so long that when a private consortium approached me telling me they’d recently launched Daedalus, a small manned satellite of their own, and needed qualified crew members, I jumped at the chance to go to space at last.

I should have realized that what they meant by “crew member” was “lab monkey”. But to be honest, even after I found this out it didn’t do a lot to dampen my enthusiasm for the project. I was going to space.

There were two other people technically on the crew. I say technically as I never spent any time with them beyond the trip up to the Daedalus. Their names were Yan Kilbride and Manuela Dominguez. I’m sure that they probably did a lot more looking after the station than I ever did, but as far as I was concerned I was the only one up there.

From the chatter I heard before the mission began, each of us had an experiment of our own to be concerned with. But they were also there as a backup in case something went horribly wrong with mine, since the observing scientist simply didn’t have the option of intervening themselves.

I remember the man in charge of my particular project, Conrad Lukas, made a face of rather overstated disgust when he told me I wouldn’t be up there entirely on my own. I got the distinct impression he was one of those people who feel that ethical restrictions do nothing but bind the hands of the true scientist and leave them at the mercy of their subjects’ limitations.

My section of the tiny space station was completely self-contained. There was food, sleeping arrangements, and zero-gravity exercise equipment, all for my personal use. The single entrance to the rest of the satellite was locked and sealed. It could be opened from either side but on my side it required a code. I did have access to the code in case of emergency, but I had way too much riding on the mission to even think about being responsible for its early termination.

I also had one large domed window. It allowed me a decent view of the Earth below, as well as plenty of chance to stare off into space, which I did quite a lot in those early days.

I was told the other astronauts would do their best to avoid that window while doing maintenance or repair work outside. Mission Control had also supplied me with a lot of books and films and other entertainment as, like Conrad had told me at the first briefing, the experiment was into isolation, not boredom. So when I locked that door for the first time, I was feeling in pretty good spirits about the whole thing, to be honest.

I knew I was being monitored. There was a little camera mounted on the wall that kept a beady eye on me. It wasn’t so invasive that I couldn’t get away from it when I wanted to, but for the most part I was happy enough to eat and read and exercise in front of the watchful lens.

Obviously those assessing my progress would never communicate with me directly and they might not even be watching a live feed, so if they had opinions on how I was undertaking my task, I never heard them. Even if my task was just sitting around in a room in space waiting for my mind to break.

I tried not to take too much comfort in the knowledge that there were people watching my every move, as I felt that to find that reassuring would go quite strongly against the spirit of the experiment. I had to really feel alone. That at least it didn’t take too long to set in. I can’t honestly see how strapping yourself in to sleep or drinking your juice with a space foil pack on the straw can have much effect on isolation, but I wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up.

I believe some people would have been more disturbed than others by its location orbiting Earth, but it didn’t feel markedly different to me from any of the other isolation studies they conducted over the last few decades. If anything the silent, rolling green and blue of the Earth far below was another source of comfort, in the sure knowledge of the billions of other people making their way through life who had no idea what was right above their heads.

Both of these comforts lasted me almost six weeks. That was when I was aware I should start to experience some of the more distressing side effects.

I’d already passed through listlessness and a bout of insomnia. And I hadn’t been using my exercise machine properly for almost a fortnight, but I still didn’t expect the severity of the hallucinations when they began.

Twice I was woken up by the sound of the door opening, only to find it as tight as it had ever been. Throughout the daytime I would occasionally hear footsteps, which shouldn’t even have been possible in zero gravity. There was also a blackout for about 20 minutes at one point that may or may not have been real. Certainly we didn’t seem to lose power in any other systems except the lights.

So this was all reasonably distressing, but at least it had the advantage of not being unexpected. No, the first warning I got about how bad things were going to get was the spacesuit.

The clocks read it as 14:30 UTC and I was rewatching 28 Days Later, one of the better films that had been provided for my entertainment, when a movement in the window caught my eye. At first I thought it might have been some orbital debris moving past, but then I spotted it, still at the edge of the domed window.

It was a hand. The white bulky gloved hand of someone wearing an EVA suit. It started to float slowly across the window, followed by the rest of the arm, then the torso, ‘till almost the whole suit slowly floating across.

I was excited by the idea of seeing another human being at first, even if it was only brief or might compromise some of the work, but as the suit made its painstaking drift across the space outside, it rotated enough that I could see clearly through the suit’s visor.

There was nobody inside. The floating suit was completely empty.

And I started to suddenly get very scared.

At last it had passed right across and off into the night, the other side, and I stopped to try and calm myself in the face of what had been a deeply strange thing to watch. I managed to do so, but only until I looked again out of that window.

There were no more empty, floating clothes, but I noticed something that for some reason hadn’t dawned on me when watching the empty suit. It was, to put it quite simply, impossible, and I must have approached it from a hundred different angles trying to make sense of it.

The Earth was gone.

At first I assumed it must have been an orientation change, but that didn’t make any sense. The planet below had never been hidden from my position before and if we shifted that radically I would have felt it, I was sure.

But still the fact remained that where the Earth should have been, there was empty, dark space. I must have watched for hours waiting to see the sun. We were definitely still moving, and from what I could tell we still seemed to be moving in some sort of orbit, but without a planet below I have no idea why we kept the same pattern. Regardless, the sun should have been visible sooner or later.

After two days of waiting, I finally accepted the sun and the moon had gone as well.

It wasn’t completely empty out there. Far off in the distance I could still see stars twinkling. Probably long dead, but I knew that there was nothing they could do to save me.

At some point on the first day, I remembered the camera. I focused my attention on it and began to scream and shout for help, in the vain hope that someone might be watching a feed of it and be able to make contact. I cried and begged and pleaded with that camera for almost four hours before I was suddenly struck by a terrifying thought.

I floated over to it and gently took hold of the cables that were fed out from the back into the wall. I followed them along, looking for where they connected the power or broadcasting apparatus. What I found instead were a pair of neatly severed wires.

Transmitting nothing. Powering nothing. Connected to nothing.

The camera had never even been turned on, and had certainly not been transmitting anything to Earth. So what data had they been collecting?

I still have no idea the answer to that question, but I did feel like I gained some small sliver of control back after spending an all-too-brief hour smashing up the camera.

After that, it was time to break out the code and get the door to the rest of the satellite open. I had decided that even if this somehow was simply a really elaborate and convincing trick to examine reactions to certain stimulus in a test environment, it was still far beyond what I had signed up for. One way or another I decided I was getting out of this damned experiment.

I opened the small safe that contained the passcode document and easily broke the seal on its container. I was desperate to get out of that door as soon as possible and took a few moments to memorize it.

E109GHT8.

I can still remember it vividly as I entered that code over and over in an attempt to get that locked door to open. Each time I painstakingly entered it with as much precision as I still had within me, and each time the password field read out what I had apparently typed in:

“No one is coming”

and the door remained closed.

And that was it. I was trapped alone in a tiny room floating in space deserted empty space. I had plenty of food and water so starvation wasn’t a danger, but sometime in the first week the clock stopped working.

With no timepiece and nothing left outside of the sun or moon keeping any sort of time at all became utterly impossible. If I had to guess how long I spent in that strange exile, I would say somewhere between three and six months. But that is based solely on my eating and sleeping patterns, which were largely fueled by despair and that quiet aching terror of being utterly forsaken. I couldn’t even read my books or watch anything as characters seemed dead and lifeless, the emptiness of their artificial existence made plain to me.

The hallucinations stopped. I did not even get the comfort of company in my delusions, though at some point the line between dreaming and reality seemed to blur. I’d be sleeping, strapped into my bed in the middle of the void, or at the same time floating through ancient graveyards, or the open empty sea. They weren’t hallucinations, though they were dreams, even if the cold did seem to seep out of them and into the bones of me.

I spent so long trying to get that door open, but nothing worked. The mechanisms and electronics were not accessible from my side. When I finally stopped trying it was the final abandoning of my hope. That was also when I noticed something else that alarmed me in a very different way.

I did some calculations and realized that my food and water levels did not seem to be depleting. For all the time I had been there, in what I could now only think of as my imprisonment, it did not seem like there had been any significant change in my supplies. No one could be restocking me, because there was no one but me there. The food remained static, then did that mean I could remain trapped in this place for the rest of my life, assuming I even still aged?

I began to very seriously consider the idea that I had died, and this was Hell. Given that worry, the way I finally escaped it could be considered ironic. I starved myself to death. Well, not to death, I suppose, given I’m alive enough to talk to you, but close enough.

I don’t know how long I just floated there strapped into my lonely cocoon of a bed, refusing to eat or drink, waiting for the end. After everything else, I had no guarantee it was even possible for me to die but I had to try. When I finally faded from consciousness for what I hoped was the last time, it was the greatest relief I have ever felt.

I don’t know exactly when I realized I wasn’t dead. There were various moments I faded back into consciousness and I know that I felt the re-entry very hard. But it is difficult to pin down clear thoughts before the hospital.

No one’s really given me an official account of what happened, aside from that it became known I was in serious danger of death, and my colleagues on the Daedalus retrieved me, and managed to keep me alive until the next opportunity to send me back down.

I’m not pushing to know more, not really. I know what happened. And no rational cover story that they could feed me is going to change it.

I haven’t followed up with Conrad and as far as I’m aware he hasn’t made any attempt to contact me. I was paid in full though, which was a surprise.

I wanted to tell someone what really happened for almost a year before I found your Institute. There’s nothing really to be done about it, I wanted to get it off my chest.

So thank you for letting me get it down on paper.

Statement Ends.

While there's plenty of media coverage of the launch of the Daedalus, it seems the actual operation was very guarded by the various organisations involved.

George was able to confirm that during its 2 years of operation it did have 3 staff on board. Ian Kilbride, Manuela Domingez and Mr Chillcot. Beyond that however, there's little we can receive.

Zak was however able to get a list of the businesses involved in the venture, 3 names stand out. Pinacale Aerospace, majority owned by the fairchild family. A large sum of money given by one Nathaniel Lukas. Optic solutions limited, a relatively tiny company producing cameras, who are none the less noticeable for having their business address listed for Norway.

End Recording.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

-High Static-

"Clay? What are you doing?"

Oh uh, Darryl, I can't seem to find the file for the Hilltop Road case. I thought I gave it to you for the children.

"You did and I gave it back. Even if I didn't I'd prefer if you kept it out of my desk."

Oh of course sorry, I didn't realise you were still here, or I would've asked.

"Of course."

I'll see if it's with Zak.

"Also Clay, I have asked before."

What?

"Please don't record our conversations."

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Stupid! I thought Darryl had left for the evening. I wanted to have a look in his desk for anything that might shed light on his behaviour. I didn't get much of a hint except for torn scrap paper.

I'm at a loss why he may want to destroy files though. Still I may need to back off Darryl now after this, I'll watch from afar. I did find pictures of him and his new boyfriend, it puts my mind slightly at ease but something is wrong.

I mean they're all pictures of Darryl and Tom, as I've been told, having fun together. It's hard to put into words but-

Every one of them looks like a stock photo.

End Supplement.


	27. Pest Control

55

<-Recording Begins->

Say it again please.

"Excuse me?"

What you just said, can you say it again so I have it on tape.

"Oh! Sylvee is dead."

Youre sure? Completely?

"Yep, I watched the incineration."

There were no complications? Worms that escaped, the body moving during incineration, noises from it like screams or chanting- weird feelings like a thousand tiny things moving against your skin.

"Wow nope, nothing like that. Just smell but I'll get to that, it went well, nothing but the ashes I gave to your friends. Which I shouldn't have by the way so keep that quiet"

Don't worry, I ran away from the police when I was a teenager.

"Wow. You are something."

Its been months though, why are you just making your statement now?

"Its not really just her body. I was the one who was first called in to deal with the best in her old apartment."

Oh.

"Yeah, but there are a few things I've been thinking about. Putting some pieces together. Thought you guys should probably know."

Right, start from the beginning whenever you feel comfortable-

Statement of Jordan Kennedy, regarding?

"Several weird things I've found while working in pest control."

Statement taken direct from subject, 3rd November, 2016. Statement begins.

I’ve worked as an exterminator for the better part of 10 years now. I should say pest controller, really - the BPCA generally advise against using the e-word. They feel it sounds a bit too unpleasant, harms our public image. I’ve never really minded. I mean, I guess I could say killing things is sort of exerting control over them, but I’ve always felt that trying to sanitize my job is somehow a bit dishonest. Like trying to help people forget that what they’re actually doing is commissioning the deaths of creatures which we’ve deemed too disgusting or unhealthy to live. It needs doing, don’t get me wrong, and I’m happy enough to do it, but it isn’t my job to hold people’s hands and make them feel better about it.

I’ve done places all over London - mainly big commercial buildings where I have to work at night, while all the bankers and the like have gone home. Setting traps, putting down poison boxes, the usual. Residential homes don’t call me out quite as much for rats and mice, especially if it’s a rental place. Most landlords don’t bother paying out for that sort of thing, or try to deal with it themselves.

Get a lot of calls about bedbugs, though. Those little bastards the devil to get rid of, and of course come summer we have to deal with plenty of wasps nests. Sprinkle in a generous handful of cockroaches, ants, and occasionally even birds or foxes, and you have a pretty good idea of what my working life consists of. Pretty normal.

Got my first weird call about five years ago. It was ants - or, so I was told. Down in Bromley. The house itself looked like a pretty standard suburban home. Maybe a bit more rundown than its neighbours, but nothing particularly unusual about that, especially if they were calling me in. There was no car in the driveway, and the blinds were all drawn despite the summer sun. It didn’t look like there was anyone home.

I found out later that it had actually been one of the neighbors that called me in, a woman named Laura Star, but at that point I was still expecting to be met by someone at the house. I knocked on the door, but obviously there was no answer.

Now, I always wear gloves when I’m on the job and when I noticed my hand, I noticed a very faint sheen where the thin leather had touched the wood. It seemed to be some sort of oily residue. I was feeling less comfortable with the job by the second. I couldn’t hear anything from inside, so I knocked again. The woman who hired me had said to let myself in, but I didn’t want to just waltz in unannounced.

After a few seconds of silence, I tried the handle, and sure enough, the door opened. There were no lights on inside, and the place seemed almost completely empty of furniture. I could see faint movement on the wooden floor as I looked around for the light switch. I found it quickly enough, and flicked it on to reveal exactly what I’d expected. Ants. I just hadn’t expected that many. And there were so very many of them. To this day I have never seen more ants inside a building at once. There must have been thousands carpeting the floor and swarming over the walls.

I drew my hand back from the light switch as I noticed dozens of them crawling around it. Even the bulb seemed to be covered with them, causing the light in the room to be covered with twitching shadow. The house itself didn’t look much better. Wherever there was a gap in the ants I could see that same oily rot, and I couldn’t escape the idea that the building was somehow sick.

Now, I’ve seen plenty of disgusting things in this job, but I reckon that moment was one of the most intense. I fled briefly back to my van to decide on my next move. Normally, I’d leave out some poison bait for them to take back to their colony, eliminating the problem at its source, but an infestation that bad, well, that doesn’t come from nothing.

I needed to get a sense of exactly what I was dealing with. Even from the road I could see a steady stream flowing out the open door and over the step. I kitted up with pesticide spray and headed in for a closer look. I wouldn’t normally bother using spray on ants, but this wasn’t normal, and the formula I was using works on ants just fine. That said, I didn’t actually see any of them die. I wouldn’t have expected to immediately, anyway, and what was important is that wherever I sprayed, they fled, clearing a path of discolored floor for me to walk.

It was slow going, but I got through most of the ground floor like that, and didn’t see anything except more ants. No people, no furniture, nothing. At least until I reached the kitchen and saw the fridge.

There was nothing else in that kitchen. Even the sink had been removed, leaving just the water pipes sticking out of the wall, like rusty, diseased bones. But up against the far wall stood an old fridge. Its once white-skin was now a jaundiced yellow, and I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was pulsing ever-so-gently. Thick, black, massive ants swarmed from the crack in its door and I had no doubt that whatever was at the heart of this incredibly unpleasant situation, it was going to be in that fridge.

So, I decided it was probably a good idea to step outside for a cigarette before I opened it. The air outside seemed much fresher as I left the house. I walked a few yards away from the door, so that I wasn’t too close, and then I lit up. It was as I took the first drag that I saw a car pull up to the driveway. It was a small red compact, and the license plate seemed to indicate that it had only been bought the year before. But even so, I could see the rust starting bubble the paint near the edges of the paneling.

I watched as the door opened and a man stepped out. He was tall, maybe six-and-a-half feet, but it was hard to be sure of his shape inside the huge, brown suit he was wearing. He took one look at me, then the sign on the side of my van that read “Kennedy Pest Control,” and his face began to crease with rage.

I took another drag on my cigarette. I was… uneasy about the whole situation, and was waiting to see what the strange-looking man would do. He walked up to me, great strides that brought him close enough that I could see the unhealthy gloss of sweat on his skin. Was everything here sick?

He leaned in far closer than I was comfortable with and demanded to know what I was doing. I told him that the homeowner had hired me to take care of an ant infestation, and I’d been doing a preliminary sweep. He started to shake his head violently, saying that he was the homeowner, that this was his house, and I had no business being there. Well, those weren’t his exact words. What he actually said was that I had no business “applying my vile trade on his property.”

I was about to get out my phone and call the woman who hired me when his hand shot out without warning and grabbed me by the throat. He lifted me off my feet with a strength that terrified me, and I was very glad that, even with the hood down, my protective suit kept my neck covered. I could feel his hand through the thick plastic. It was hot, like he was running some incredibly high fever, and I started to panic.

He held me there, almost a foot off the ground, and my vision began to swim as he squeezed my throat. As I struggled for breath, I flailed for something to fight him off with, and realized I was still holding my lighter. With a the degree of composure that, looking back on it now, still surprises me, I flicked the lighter on, and raised it to just below his arm.

The result was a lot more dramatic than I expected. His loose brown suit sleeve caught almost immediately, and within a few moments, his whole arm was alight. He yelped and dropped me onto the ground. As he began to flail about, trying to stop the fire spreading further across his body I staggered to my van. By then, it didn’t matter who the rightful owner of that house was, I was done with that job.

It was as I was climbing into the van that I smelled it. It is the most disgusting thing I have ever encountered, halfway between sun-cured roadkill, stale sweat, and rotten eggs, with just a hint of burning rubber. And underneath it all is that undefinable scent of sickness. You know, that smell you get when you enter a room where someone’s been ill for several days. No matter what else it smells like, beneath it all there’s that vague but undeniable whiff of disease. That’s what this man smelt like as he desperately tried to extinguish his burning flesh.

I drove away, trying not to gag, and I didn’t look back. I didn’t call the police, either as I felt they might not look too kindly on me setting a man alight, even if he did attack me. I assume he didn’t file a report, either, as no one ever turned up to question me about it.

So, that was the first time I encountered that smell."

I see. And the other time was when you burned Jane Prentiss?

"Not… just.

I mean, I didn’t actually see her. The incineration was the first time I ever saw her in person. But a couple of years ago, I was called in to deal with the wasp’s nest.

That’s what the landlord had called it on the phone, at least - apparently, it had injured one of his tenants earlier that day, and I was the first pest control service he had called that was free immediately. He didn’t tell me the name of the tenant, though obviously I now know who it was. He didn’t give me any real details on the phone, but he seemed happy to pay the emergency call-out charge, so I bundled up my wasp gear and headed out to Prospero Road.

It was a bit strange to get a call about wasps at that time of year. It was late February or early March, I think, and still quite cold. Still, if it was a warm enough building, they could easily be getting active. Regardless, I made sure to check over the thick suit I used for that sort of job, to make sure there was no weakness or damage. If they were aggressive enough to injure someone, I wasn’t gonna take any chances.

The landlord’s name was Arthur Nolan. He was a short man with a constant scowl, thinning white hair, and a well-chewed cigar. It looked like his denim shirt had once contained quite an athletic build, but it had long since sailed. He looked me up and down as I left my van, and I saw his mouth twist briefly in irritation. Clearly, he wasn’t impressed.

I gave him the usual talk through what was gonna happen, and he nodded absently before pressing the keys to flat four into my hands and pointing me towards it. If I needed anything, he said, he’d be in flat one, where he lived. I advised him and the other tenants to stay out the building while I was dealing with the wasps, but he just grunted and told me again that he’d be in flat one. The other tenants had apparently already left.

I loaded up on insecticide and headed in. It was a lot quieter than I expected. By the time I was outside flat four, I would normally have expected to be hearing the buzzing sound of wasps, but the evening was quiet. I opened the door slowly - no sudden movements that might alarm anything on the other side - but again the flat seemed to be empty.

It looked like there’d been some chaos, though, with books and clothes strewn across the floor, and a shattered TV screen in the corner. I found the ladder up into the loftspace in the center of the bedroom. It was quite small, and climbing in my bulky suit was tricky, but I got up there. Still no wasps, but it was very dark, so I rooted around again until I found the switch to a single bare bulb. The light was very faint, but enough to make out a thick, pulpy lump up against the far wall.

It certainly didn’t look like any wasp’s nest I’d seen before. I mean, the shape was familiar enough, but the texture of the surface was way off. It seemed a lot less papery than would have been normal, and the walls were less… regular, going off at odd angles and making it kind of hard to look away. The whole thing was spongy, pocked with tiny holes, and generally looking very unhealthy indeed. And most disconcerting of all, there were still no wasps.

None of this changed the job I had to do, so I figured I’d start off like any other wasp’s nest and see if it worked. I reached forward, staying as far from this thing as the nozzle would let me, and I pushed it into one of the larger holes. It sank in with almost no resistance at all. I took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger, spraying the insecticide dust deep into the mass.

The effect was immediate. The whole thing started to pulse and spasm, the spongy flesh of it throbbing and bubbling like some sort of vile putty. It began to grow in size, blossoming out and covering the rest of the nozzle, reaching out for me. And then it began to… scream. Not the sound of air escaping, or a buzzing that sounded like screaming, the weird nest thing was letting out a long, warbling cry of anger and pain.

I dropped the pump and was down the ladder so fast I almost fell into the flat below. I could still hear it as I reached the door to the corridor. I threw it open only to be confronted by the face of Arthur Nolan, the landlord, staring at me with a look of disappointment.

He nodded and began to walk down the hall. I followed him, desperate for answers, but he just ignored my questions about what the hell was going on, about what that thing was, and kept walking down the stairs to his own flat. At one point he shook his head and mumbled something about hoping it wouldn’t get this far, but he didn’t seem to be saying it to me.

As soon as the door opened I became aware of how uncomfortably warm flat one was. The air was thick and dry, and made my throat feel a bit scratchy. The landlord continued to ignore my presence, and walked over to an old armchair in the center of the room. As he did so, he started to unbutton his denim shirt.

Moreso than anything else that happened, that was the thing that finally stopped me in confusion. I couldn’t understand what he was doing. As he sat down, his shirt flapped open, and I saw what looked to be an intricate scar on his chest. If I had to guess what it was, I’d have said it looked like a stylized flame, but it also made me think of a face contorted in pain.

Time seemed to move slowly as he reached for the ashtray on the arm of the chair, and picked up a pack of matches. He struck one, and without even looking at me, he gently pressed the small flame to the center of the scar.

His flesh caught fire immediately. The flames spread across his body like rippling water. The armchair caught, then the floor, and then I was running out of the building before the roiling inferno covered me as well. This time, I didn’t drive away. I stood there and I watched it burn until the fire brigade arrived.

It was when the fire hit that attic space at the top floor, where I knew that awful nest still sat. That was when I smelled it: the same grotesque stench that had come from that oily, fevered man three years before.

At the time, I didn’t really connect the two. I was too busy trying to comprehend what had just happened. And when trucks from the ECDC showed up to put me in quarantine, it slipped my mind entirely.

They were surprisingly forthcoming about Jane Prentiss and what had happened, and after an extensive debriefing, they actually offered me a job. Apparently, disease control and pest control often go hand in hand, and I’ve been working for them since. Most of the job’s been mundane - a couple slightly weird, but nothing like those two."

So why make your statement now? 

"When I helped incinerate her body, I smelled it again, like before. Took me a while to piece it together but I thought you should know." 

Are you saying there's more out there like her? 

"God I hope not, I don't know. The man from the ant house, wasn't like her, not at all. That smell when they burnt, I think they're connected somehow. That scares me." 

Yes. Yes it rather scares me too. 

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Mr Kennedy's statement has left me somewhat rattled. While I am always cheerful to any closure on the case of Sylvee and her gross worms, this seems to come with the rather serious idea that she wasn't walking alone. 

No, that doesn't sound right. Sylvee or whatever that flesh hive was that took her does not seem like the sort of being that would work well with others. The house was torn down last year but George found the ownership records, listed as owned by a man named John Amhurst. 

The dates aren't entirely clear as to this is before or after he took ownership of Ivy Meadows nursing home, but there's no doubt they're the same person. It doesn't sound like he's another flesh hive and yet-

No connection except disease and insects. A foul smell when they burn. Sylvee is dead but this is a long way from over. 

Recording Ends

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, I don't have much to report actually. Its been Halloween week which means research has been flooded with statements. Most of them fake of course, the volume does mean they've called in the archive to deal with the overflow. 

Its been nice actually, disproving stupid nonsense and laughing with George and Zak. I even got a good night's sleep, the first time since I've been paranoid about my own death, I even got a good night's sleep. 

I miss those days. 

End Supplemental. 

<-Recording Ends->

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took me like two weeks to update, I had a lot of school work then the new magnus episode physically destroyed me cause idk whether to put it in this fic or not and make yall cry


	28. Recluse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, I accidentally wrote Pest Control twice so I deleted the chapter 26 version. Hopefully this is better. The tape recorder clicks are the cuts of the same recording.

59

<-Recording Begins->

Statement of Ronald Sinclair, regarding his years spent in a teenage halfway house on Hilltop Road, Oxford. Original statement given November 29th 2005, audio recording by Clay 9@(£#, Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

Statement Begins

I should have come in to tell you people about this before, really. I heard about your institute back in the 80s, and I thought, “should I tell them?” But I didn’t. Thought you’d be all about old castles and ancient cairns, not have any time for weird goings-on in a suburban house in Oxford. And you’re academics as well so probably have more rigorous standards than one crackpot’s horror story.

Still, I saw last week that they were planning to build on that land again. Another house where the old Fielding place used to be. I don’t know, it’s not like you’d have any power to stop the construction, but I just… I needed to tell someone about it. And you were less likely to throw me out on my ear than the Planning Department of Oxford City Council.

You see, I lived with Raymond Fielding for almost three years, and believe me when I say that there is nothing good that can come from disturbing that dreadful place.

I was a bad kid. I’ve cleaned up my act in the 40-odd years since, but back then I was a little thug. Wasn’t entirely my fault - I came from a bad family. My father left before I was born, and I’m not sure how much you know about single motherhood in the late 40s, but it was clearly hard enough that my mother ended up with a serious alcohol problem.

I won’t go into the gory details of my childhood, but let’s just say it’s no surprise I was out of school and in the system before my 13th birthday. They tried a few places to set me straight. Back then these sort of places weren’t quite as enlightened, and the only life lesson I learned worth a damn was how to take a beating.

Finally, when I was 15, after the justice system was finished with me for the third time, I was given the chance to reenter society, and offered a place at a halfway house on Hill Top Road.

It’s weird. I’ve tried to get information on it so many times in the years since, but there’s nothing there. It’s like it never existed. I mean, this was a long way pre-digital, and files got lost plenty, but it still bothers me. The most traumatic thing that ever happened to me, and as far as any official record is concerned, I couldn’t have even been there.

Raymond Fielding was younger than I expected. Every other place, the people in charge had been old, leathery moralists with scowls on their faces and calluses on their knuckles. A lot of ex-military types who would lecture for hours on how their wasted life had been saved by the discipline of the army, and did their best to impose it on us.

Ray, as he insisted we call him, was different. He couldn’t have been much older than 30, and he let his brown hair grow long - not by today’s standards, I suppose, but it would have sent any of the crew-cut authoritarians into a red-faced rage. He was friendly and approachable, but didn’t seem like he was trying to be our friend. He was easygoing and smiled a lot. But there was something in his eyes that made me wary of trying to take advantage of him.

I didn’t like him from the start. The other adults I’d met on my journey through delinquency had been awful, and they’d run the spectrum from drippy, patronizing do-gooders to abusive thugs, but I’d always known. I would know what they were and where I stood with them. Ray was a mystery, and that unsettled me. Still, he wasn’t too strict with our comings and goings, and the other kids staying there seemed all right.

The one thing that surprised me was how rare it was to see anyone come back. Most other halfway houses I’d stayed in, you always had some of the older residents, those who had fallen into even worse criminal company, coming back occasionally, usually to sell drugs or do some recruiting.

Amphetamines were the thing back in the early 60s, so I was surprised when I moved into Hill Top Road and there wasn’t a purple Heart or a black bomber to be found. It didn’t seem like any alumni of Ray’s little family came back for a visit.

At the time, I just assumed it was a pretty nice neighborhood, so probably wasn’t the sort of place my kind - as I thought of it then - made a habit of visiting. I wasn’t wrong. The local residents hated us. We never really got into any proper trouble, but the sort of glares we got just for smoking on the street made me want to break a window sometimes.

I never did, though. I’m… not quite sure why I didn’t. To be honest, before I met Ray, I would have. There were plenty of broken windows in my past. There was something about living there, though, that dulled the urge.

My memories of a lot of my time there are, well, not exactly foggy, but feel almost like I’m watching someone else’s memories. I remember that it sometimes felt like I’d do things without actually deciding to do them. Like it was just muscle memory moving me, or a string gently guiding me.

It was never bad or dangerous stuff, just… things I wouldn’t normally have done, like brushing my teeth. I’m glad for it now I’ve passed 60, and teeth have stopped being something I take for granted. But at 15 the thought never even crossed my mind. But when I lived on Hill Top Road, I cleaned them every night, up and down and side to side, my arm moving like I didn’t even need to think about it.

The other kids living there were the same. At least, I think they were. I remember them being kind of dull - not that they were boring, exactly; we’d spend time together, and smoke and play games and the like. But there was something about them. As though there were some things that they said and did without anything behind them.

Occasionally, there’d be flashes of something. Like the time me and Dick Barrowdale snuck out after dark and set Mr. Hainsley’s bins on fire. But mostly they were quiet, almost placid. I’m sure they’d have said the same things about me, but at the time, nothing seemed amiss. I did what I did because it was what I was supposed to do. It never struck me to question it. I’m not sure I really recognize who I became while living at that house.

I did take up reading, though. There was a shop down in Kerry that kept a bucket of old pulp magazines marked down to 6 pence because they weren’t the latest issue. I used to spend whatever money I had down there, and then I’d sit under the tree in the back garden and read them cover to cover, over and over again. They were daft, really, but I loved them. In the summer, with the leaves giving you just enough shade to keep cool, I’d say I was happier than I’d ever been before then.

For the most part, Ray seemed content to stay out of our hair and leave us to our own devices. He had his own study in the basement, where he spent almost all his time, and usually trusted one of us to go to the grocer’s for food and sundries. Aside from church, which he made us attend with him every Sunday, he rarely went out at all. Occasionally, one of the other residents of the neighborhood would overcome their distaste for us long enough to ask how Ray was keeping, and whether he was well.

I gradually got the sense that, with the exception of the teenagers staying at his house, Raymond Fielding was something of a recluse. A well-liked recluse, certainly, but to see him leave the house on any day other than a Sunday was quite a remarkable thing.

Aside from church, there was one other regular activity that he always insisted we take part in. We generally ate our meals in the dining room - which was a bit cramped sometimes, as, when full, there were eight of us in the house aside from Ray, and the table was barely big enough.

On Sunday evenings, however, we’d all gather for the evening meal, and before we sat down to eat, he would remove the bright white tablecloth that covered it, and we’d gather around the dark wood. I remember it was carved in all sorts of strange swirling designs and patterns. It felt like if you picked a line, any line, you could follow it through to the center, to some deep truth, if only your eye could keep track of the strands that had caught it.

The center of the table looked, at first, like it was simply part of the wooden top, but if you looked closely, as I did so often, you could see an outline marking the very middle as a small, square box, carved with patterns just like the ones that laced their way over the rest of the table. I don’t remember how long we sat around the table those evenings, nor do I have any memory of what we might have eaten.

So I passed a couple of years in relative peace. I actually studied, stayed mostly out of trouble, and, as my 18th birthday approached, it looked like I might be able to find someone to teach me a decent trade. At that point, I was the oldest there by a few months, the others having left the house as they each turned 18 in turn. A suited man would come around - though, rarely the same one twice - Ray would sign some papers, and my former house sibling would head out the door and into the wide world. I didn’t see them after that, but at the time I didn’t really think anything of it. I assumed they were too busy trying to survive in a world that I had always considered deeply hostile.

Maia came to the house two months before my birthday, in the middle of winter. Ray had never mentioned her, never held one of his little meetings to introduce her. She was just suddenly in the house one day, and no one really thought to question it. She was younger than the other kids, maybe ten or eleven years old. Didn’t talk much. She had a small, soft face, and long brown hair, always braided into two tight pigtails, which she would twirl around her fingers whenever you tried to talk to her. I’ll admit, she was a bit spooky, looking back on it, but to be honest at the time I never really questioned it, the same way I never really questioned any of it.

She never came to church, though. Never sat around the dinner table when it was uncovered. Whenever Ray came in the room and she was in there, he would often just turn around and leave. And once, I could have sworn that he looked at her with something in his eyes that, even in my dull state, I recognized as fear.

I was so focused on my upcoming emancipation that I didn’t pay much attention to these developments, and I can’t tell you much more about Maia, or what she did with her time in the house. All I know is that, when the man from the Children’s Committee came with the papers for Ray to sign, she was standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching me with an expression that looked almost playful.

Ray signed the documents to remand me fully back to state custody. The age of majority back then was twenty-one, but from eighteen I was expected to be finding work and accommodation on my own. It was all a bit surreal, watching pens sign my life into its different stages without holding any of them myself.

As the man in the suit told me to follow him in a clipped BBC accent, Maia walked over, and gestured for me to lean down and listen to her. I did so, but instead of a conspiratorial whisper, she just gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then ran off down the hall. I stood there for a moment, confused, before my temporary guardian once again instructed me to follow him.

I did so, and the cold air of the outside hit me like a slap across the face. We walked for a few minutes to the end of the road, and I felt as though my meager suitcase was almost frozen to my hand. He told me to wait there while he brought his car around, then disappeared down a side street.

I stood there as the bitter wind cut through my thin coat. The sun was out, but it didn’t do much to soften the sharpness of the February air as I waited.

Then, without warning, I wasn’t waiting anymore. I had turned around, put down my suitcase, and started walking back toward Raymond Fielding’s house. I didn’t want to go back. I had no reason to go back, but I had apparently decided to, anyway, because I knew that’s where I was going.

After two and a half years, I was rather used to this feeling, but there was something else there this time. Something in the back of my mind, a frantic, scuttling terror. It didn’t do any good, though. I was returning to Hill Top Road, no matter what I might feel about it. Choice didn’t even come into it.

The door was unlocked when I returned, and the house was quiet. My eyes darted around, looking for anyone who might be able to tell me what was going on, why the fine threads that pulled me through my life had dragged me back here. But I was alone. I walked over to the door that led down into the basement, into Ray’s study, and I was suddenly struck by the realization that nobody other than him had ever gone inside. At least, not to my knowledge.

Nonetheless, I reached up and turned the handle, twisted silently, and the door swung open, revealing a set of stairs leading down. Lightbulbs in spherical lampshades lit the way, and the thought struck me that, given how much time Ray spent down here, it was surprising how many cobwebs there were. They covered every corner, and lightly coated part of the walls. As I headed down the stairs, closing the door behind me, I saw even more, and came to the unsettling realization that what covered the bare bulbs were not in fact lampshades, but were instead thick clumps of cobweb.

The sight that greeted me when I finally reached the bottom of the stairs was about as far from what I had expected as it could possibly have been. Rather than a study filled with books, papers, desks, or the like, the room was large, and almost empty. The walls and ceiling were bare earth, and it looked more like a burrow than anything else.

In the center of the room stood that strange hypnotic table, though how he had gotten the heavy wooden thing down here was beyond me. The whole place was covered with a thick gossamer of spider’s web, and in the thick clumps around the edges of the chamber I saw shapes I recognised.

Doris Hardy. Dick Barrowdale. Greg Montgomery. The older ones who had left the house before I had.

They lay still now, wrapped in their sticky cocoons. Their bodies seemed warped and bloated in a way I didn’t recognize. But that’s only because at that point in my life, I had never before seen a spider egg sac.

In the chair sat Raymond Fielding. He looked the same as ever, that placid, unreadable smile still on his face. His brown leather coat seemed to shift around his body. The texture in the dim light seemed more like coarse fur.

He didn’t say anything, just watched as I continued to make my way towards the table. For all the terror strangling my heart at that moment at the discovery of the grotesque fate of my friends, I could still feel the bland, uncaring expression on my face, and found myself stood in front of the table as though nothing whatsoever was wrong.

I reached over and pulled the wooden square from the center of the table. On its own, it appeared to be a small wooden box, and the lid opened smoothly, as my hands moved in a practiced motion. Inside was an apple, green and fresh and still wet with morning dew.

I knew I was going to eat it. I could feel tears desperately trying to push themselves out of my eyes, but I instead decided not to cry. I placed the box down on the table, reached over, and picked up the apple.

All at once, my cheek erupted in pain. It was like someone had pressed a hot branding iron into my face, and I could swear that I heard the flesh sizzle as I let out a scream and fell to my knees.

I raised my hands to my face and realized in that moment two very important things. The first is that my face seemed to be untouched; I could feel no injury or burn. The second was that raising my hand had been a truly voluntary act. I had willed it myself, and whatever power had been gripping me, tugging me into its web, I was free of it.

I looked at Raymond Fielding, whose face finally had a real expression on it - one of confusion and anger. As he stood up, I saw small, twitching shapes tumbling out of his jacket, and I ran. I ran up those stairs, out the door, and away into the night. I didn’t look back, and to this day, I pray every night that the others down in the basement were already dead.

That’s it, really. Within two hours, I was out of Oxford, on the first train I could jump onto. I jumped off at Birmingham to avoid a ticket inspector. And that’s where I spent the next several years. Given my start in life, I’ve done very well for myself. I now have comfort, education, and money. I try to think that I’ve left my past behind, but that sort of denial doesn’t help me sleep. I only had my first truly restful night since that day after reading about the fire that burned the house to the ground.

But now they’re building there. They’re breaking ground that should be left burned and empty. And I’ve started to dream again.

Statement Ends

Mr Sinclair was not exaggerating when he described the difficulties in tracking down information on Hilltop Road or Raymond Fielding. I was naturally inclined to suspect conspiracy but George informed me that the nature of the gaps look like lost or damaged files.

There are whole records missing from that period, not only related to Fielding but many other similar institutions. God I hate foster homes. There's no attempt to cover up or redirect these files either it just looks like they were damaged.

I have no interest in letting George read this statement in too much detail I'm in no mood to have another argument about spiders with the idiot. In fact I have no interest in thinking about spiders more than professionally required. It raises further questions about the relationship between Raymond Fielding and this Maia.

I can only hope some answers are here, I wouldn't be surprised, between Ronald Sinclair, Ivo Lensik and Father Burroughs, it appears there's still much to learn about Hilltop Road.

End Recording

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

Supplemental, everyone's avoiding me, they've taken to working farther away from me than normal and when I call them they are eager to leave. They share glances when they think I'm not looking, I don't like it.

I feel like they're planning something.

End Supplemental.

<-Recording Ends->

<-Recording Begins->

-Echoed noises-

"Look, I tried talking to Fundy about it, it doesn't seem to do any good." 

"It's just pressure, we know how messed up he's been since Sylve-" 

"How messed up he's been? George, are you serious?!" 

"I'm not trying to imply you weren't effected bu-" 

"I didn't start stalking my coworkers." 

"Zak have you tried talking to him?" 

"Yeah cause he already looks at me like a murderer." 

"We gotta let him work through this, I suggested therapy but he's stupidly stubborn-" 

"We need to do something." 

"Maybe." 

"Stop defending him just because you like him George." 

... 

-Recorder Click-

-Recorder Click-

The proceeding conversation was overheard on the 19th of November, 2016. It confirms my suspicions of Zak but does go same way to reassure me that George is unlikely to be the culprit, especially considering our earlier conversation. 

I need to be more careful. 

<-Recording Ends->


	29. Hard Shoulder

61

-Recording Begins-

You don't mind if I record this do you?

"Knock yourself out. Of course if anyone else ever hears it-"

You'll arrest me?

"No?"

Right, so you came to deliver one of the tapes?   
... 

From Tommy? The audio tapes?

...

So, can I have it?

"I'm thinking."

That must be new. I thought you needed me to check.

"You don't get it do you? The tapes, why he was giving them to you?"

He wanted me help? You didn't have a tape player in your station.

"He thought you did it."

What?

"We both did."

Wait you thought I killed Gertrude?

"Yes?"

W- why?

"Look at you, you're obsessed with it. Jumpy as hell and you're the only person who benefited from her death."

But I didn't?

"Yeah, I know. Finally got IT to clear up the CCTV for the week she dissapeared. Watches your movements for that whole week. There's no cameras in the archive but we know you didn't kill her."

What does this have to do with the tapes?

"Needed to hold you. Tommy thought you'd try and run."

So what? You fed me a couple tapes to keep me around?

"Sorta. Idk man."

And now you know I'm innocent?

"I reckon we should cut you off but Tommy is soft, he likes you. Quite frankly I don't see what's quite appetising about your face. Maybe he keeps feeding you tapes? Doesn't involve me I don't plan on seeing or hearing anything about it."

Well thank you Detective Armstrong.

"Sapnap."

Thank you Sapnap.

"Sure."

If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been sectioned-

"I do mind. 5 years."

I don't suppose you'd like to make a statement?

"About what?"

Whatever you like, 5 years you must have seen a number of paranormal things?

"And you want me to tell you about them?"

I uh-

"Okay."

What?

"Okay? I'll give you a statement, about how I got my first section 31. You look surprised."

Well I was largely asking as a formality, Tommy didn't give the impression you were the sharing sort?

"Maybe you caught me in a good mood."

Right, do you want me to put it under any polic-

"Not as long as you understand my policy. If it gets out, I'll break every bone in your body."

-Muttering- there are worse things that could happen to them.

"What?"

Uh nothing.

Statement of Detective Nick "Sapnap" Armstrong of the London Metropolitan police. What's the subject?

"Traffic stop of a delivery van on the M6 near Preston. Afternoon of 24th July, 2015" 

Recorded live from subject, 1st December 2016.

Statement Begins.

"This was a long time ago. I’d been police for two years. I wasn’t even with the Met back then. I was based up in Lancashire with a road policing unit. This is before the Highways Agency took most of the grunt work, so there was plenty to do. None of it much fun, but it needed doing. Booking drunk drivers were my favorite. I always hoped they’d refuse the breathalyzer, maybe even took a swing at me. Nothing funnier than a drunk asshole trying to avoid being arrested.

I usually rode with Isaac Masters. He’d been working with the RPU a lot longer than I had, and was even harsher than me. I know why, though. He tried to be a good police, give everyone a fair shot, but you see a lot of accidents - not much worse in the world than a really bad car crash. It gets to you. You get hard on people who don’t respect the road, and there are plenty of them out there.

It was raining that night, that heavy, thumping rain that means you can’t hear a damn thing. It crashes onto the roof like someone’s jumpin’ on it. Me and Zack was sitting in a lay-by, watching traffic and trying to drink coffee. We’d picked it up from a service station a few miles back, but it was one of those open-topped styrofoam cups. By the time we’d got back to the car, the rain had got in and left us with two cups of cold sludge.

So we were both in a pretty bad mood. It was maybe 1:00 in the afternoon, but you wouldn’t have known it. The clouds weren’t letting any sun through, and everything looked grey, wet and lifeless. Couldn’t even talk over the sound of rain on the roof, so we just sat there in silence, drinking lukewarm sludge.

The motorway was quieter than normal. A Wednesday afternoon doesn’t see a lot of traffic, but the rain usually brings out more cars. That day it was pretty empty. Everyone seemed to be driving careful on account of the rain, which was also not normal, and I was torn. Part of me wanted to spot some idiot who I could take my bad mood out on, when the other part of me didn’t want to get any wetter than I already was.

It looked like I wasn’t gonna get a choice, anyway - at least not until I saw the van. It was a beaten up old Citroën C15. There was some writing on the side, but I couldn’t see it clearly through the rain. It was either very dirty, or painted a nasty shade of off-white.

Most importantly, it was driving about 25 miles an hour. The limit is 70. There’s technically no minimum speed on a motorway, but the van didn’t show any signs of speeding up, and it was kind of strange. We had enough cause to stop it if we wanted. I wasn’t sure whether to let it go or not, but Zack had clearly made his decision already. He was in the driving seat and fired up the lights as we drove up behind it.

-Faint static-

The van glided to a stop on the hard shoulder at the side of the road and sat there. The headlights, which had been turned on for the rain, died. Then it just waited.

Zack was out first. The rain was so thick that he had to take his torch to see properly. The light passed over the van, and I could see rust creeping around the edges of the paneling.

We walked up to the driver’s side. I could see dark shapes from inside, but they weren’t moving. Up close, I could read the name on the side: “Breekon and Hope Deliveries.” It was covered in a thick layer of dirt that the rain couldn’t quite wash off.

Zack knocked on the door and it opened. The man who got out looked normal - so normal that these days I can’t really picture his face. Said his name was “Tom.” I wasn’t the one looking over his driving licence so I don’t know about second names.

From the other side two men climbed out. They were huge. Hard faces, like a pair of old stone statues, dressed in overalls and flat caps. They asked what was going on, speaking back and forth in Cockney accents so broad and fake-sounding that I thought they were putting them on for a laugh. I was about to lay into them for it when a sound cut me short.

Zack had been talking to “Tom,” who was making some bland explanation for his slow driving - caution, heavy rain, empty road, all that crap. They heard it, too, and he stopped mid-sentence to look at me.

From the back of the van, there was a sound of moaning. It sounded kind of like a moan of pain, but long and drawn-out. It went on for almost a full minute, and was almost, I don’t know, kind of musical. I looked at Tom and the fake Cockney passengers, but their faces were unreadable.

Zack gripped Tom firmly by the arm and led him to the rear doors of the van, demanding that he open it. He didn’t resist, just nodded, and got out a set of keys. He put one of them in the door, turned it, and the van opened.

I saw that the two big guys had walked up next to us, so I was gettin’ ready for trouble, but there’s no way I would have guessed what was in there.

It was a coffin. An old, wooden coffin. Rough, unvarnished. I could see splinters where the nails had been hammered in badly. Wrapped all around it was a thick metal chain ending in a heavy padlock. That weird moaning was coming from inside it. It was the only sound that cut through pounding rain.

I tensed up, reaching for my baton - if these people were kidnappers or worse, we would be in big trouble. I was ready for a fight, but they just stood there, not moving, staring at us. Everything about the situation felt wrong.

I looked over at Zack, and he seemed to be thinking the same thing. He looked over at the two men in overalls and told them to take it out, then looked over to Tom asking if he had a key to the padlock. Reaching into his jacket, the man who called himself Tom pulled out a large iron key and handed it to my partner. Didn’t look like the other keys.

I wanted to head back to the car and call in some backup, but Zack was a senior officer, and if he thought we should open it first, [inhale] I was gonna back his play.

Zack took the key and walked towards the coffin, which now lay on the wet tarmac, lit only by the headlights of our car. The moaning was louder now, almost drowning out the sound of the hammering rain. Water had begun to flow off the wood, but everything else about it was still.

As we got closer, I could see the words “Do Not Open” scratched into the surface of the wood. It didn’t look like my partner was paying them any attention, though. He gently placed the key into the lock, wincing slightly as he touched the metal, and turned it.

The chains snapped off like they were spring-loaded. They whipped around violently, and Zack jumped back, slipping and falling on his back. I brought my baton up, just in case the strangers made a move, but they were… motionless.

The moaning had stopped. The only sound was the creaking of hinges as the lid of the coffin began to move. It was slow, the gap appearing first as just a crack, before finally opening completely. It was too dark to see what was inside at first, but when I shone my torch inside, I heard Zack gasp. I think I did as well.

Inside of that wooden coffin, there was a staircase. It went down, apparently into the ground below, and seemed to go on as deep as I could see. They were steep, carved out of what looked like solid stone, and the rock that made up the walls didn’t match the wet tarmac around us, all the earth that would have been underneath it. It was completely impossible.

I tried to ask Tom or his companions about it, I yelled at them to explain what the hell was going on, but they just stood there, staring at it. So I hit one of them with my baton.

It was one of the large men in overalls, though I’m not sure which one. It was like hitting solid wood, and the blow jarred my arm badly, making me drop the only weapon I had. Even then he just stood there, staring at the casket. There was a sound of movement from behind me. I turned to see Isaac walking into the coffin, his torch shining into the hollow below. He’d already disappeared up to his waist, and there was this look on his face that I have never seen before - relaxed, like he was asleep.

I shouted for him, started to run but I felt a huge hand grip my shoulder. I grabbed it with my good arm, tried to escape it, but the grip was too strong. The texture of the flesh was like hard rubber. All I could do was watch as my partner kept walking into the earth, on stairs that couldn’t be there. After a few seconds, he was completely out of sight.

I expected to hear something - shouting, a, a scream, something - but it was still just the rain. The lid closed very slowly, and then he was gone. Just a coffin sitting on the hard shoulder of the M6.

The hand released my shoulder as the two men in overalls began to walk over and calmly wrap the chains back around it.

I felt a sudden burst of anger and picked up my baton. I lunged at them, but the one closest to me moved quicker than I would have thought possible. His fist slammed into my chest like a cannonball, and I felt a couple of ribs break. I collapsed to the floor, just lay there, as Tom and the two men locked the coffin back up, loaded it into the van, and drove off. I never saw Isaac Masters again.

-Static dies down-

When I called it in, I was expecting a manhunt, an investigation, some kind of justice. It wasn’t like we didn’t have plenty of leads. Instead, I was handed a form I didn’t recognize, told to sign it, and then reassigned to the Met. Since then, it’s been one spook story after another."

Right, thank you- um- are you quite alright? 

"No. I never told that to anyone except my old sergeant." 

I'm not sure I-

"I should go." 

Oh um yes of course I'll see you out. There is one other thing I've been meaning to ask Tommy but-

"I'm done!" 

D-do you know anything about vampires? 

... 

"Yeah." 

Oh I- it's just that-

"A while back there were some problems. Arrest irregularities regarding missing person cases. Suspects being released without proper interrogation and recordings of the interview show the subject didn't speak any words, they were let out anyway though. I don't know the details but there's a new operating procedures now."

Which would be? 

"Cases matching certain perametres are to be monitored by another office outside the room via video. In the specific circumstance where the subject doesn't speak but the officer acts as if they have, they are immediately removed from the room. Then they call me."

Just you? 

"There are a few others that do it but I take care of a dozen or so precincts. I cuff the suspects hands and legs, drive them into the forest and burn them to ash. Never enough evidence to cause an incident. I don't know if they're vampires exactly but that's what we call them."

Good lord. How many have you taken care of? 

"Um, 5 in the past 3 years." 

I see. 

"Don't tell Tommy, please. He doesn't know about that procedure and I'm not sure how much he'd understand. He's not cut out for that kind of work." 

Of course I won't. 

"Don't tell him any of this, if he wants to bring you more tapes he can do it himself. You keep this visit to yourself. Got that?" 

Y-yes. 

"Good." 

-Recording Ends-

-Recording Begins-

Supplemental, that was an interesting interview. It seems we are not done with sinister coffins just yet. The contents were surprising to say the least but give no clues to its identity to Breekon and Hope. Hostages, carries or guardians? 

Atleast I have confirmation that the vampires Trevor Herbert described were not illusions of a drug riddled man. I shouldn't be too pleased that there are hunters stalking us in the night but there it is. 

I admit being a bit hurt by Tommy's true intention but I haven't been the most stable recently. He's a good kid. I'm glad he likes me. Either way I won't bring it up, even if I wasn't genuinely somewhat afraid of Detective Armstrong. 

Such a revelation would only harm our relationship and I need those tapes. I need Grians time in this institute to stay for now. I'll check the tape I have and then wait to hear from Tommy. 

I really should've gotten his number or something but that's a matter for later. I hope I can be his friend some day, under less stressful times. 

End Supplemental.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to do the coffin statement as I forgot it was valid information. It is episode 2 and a man named Joshua Gillespie comes into contact with a coffin that he is told not to open. The coffin consistently tried to mind control him into opening it but Joshua outsmarts it every time until a man comes and collects the coffin with two delivery men.


	30. First Edition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot time boys let's goooo theorists PLS respond I'm lonely

-Recording Begins-

Well?

"No need to rush me Grian, we've got all the time in the world. Besides, this dusty old thing needs time to warm up. You don't use it much anymore do you?"

Tea?

"God no, hate the stuff."

Why are you here. 

"To make my statement of course. I know the institute and eye haven't seen uh- eye to eye hehe- but I thought it was the least I could do."

But why now? 

"Well why not? Big changes are coming Grian and I need to think about leaving something behind."

Fine. 

Subject is Mary Keay, recorded 3rd of July 2008, what is it regarding?

"What a question. I wonder. Plenty to choose from I suppose"

Take your time. 

"Did I ever tell you about my first Leitner? Of course this was before he was collecting them so back then it was just a strange book. To think there was a time before he stamped them. I feel we must've called them something, did we even know how many there where? Did we just think each one as a thing of its own."

Ugh, I don't recall. 

"I met him a few times you know? Must've been about 15 years ago, before his library burned down, it wasn't all that impressive to be honest. Shorter than I expected and slower somehow. I expected a whirlwind of intense energy but he was gentle, methodical, perfectly pleasant to talk to.

Jurgen Leitner bored me. Whenever he came to look through my stock, he'd spend almost a full minute on each book just staring at it, sometimes leaving without buying anything. Good riddance if you ask me."

I wouldn't know, I can't say we ever crossed paths. 

"I suppose not, you don't really go out and look for yourself do you, just wait here for the researches leftovers."

-Grian scoffs-

Its not that bad, sometimes someone will insist on giving me a statement directly though I rarely see the point. 

"Well, they don't understand up there, they don't know what this place is. You do though don't you? We're on the same side really, even if Fundy disagrees."

If you say so. I believe you were giving me an account of your first encounter with one of the books?

"Oh of course. I was very wrong, but I still remember it clear as day. I was nine years old at the time so it would've been 1955. It was shortly after my idiot father got himself killed and my mother was working for your institute.

We were living in Whitechapel back then, just off Turner Street. It wasn't much, just a couple of rooms and a stove but it was enough for us. My mother worked long hours as even back then the institute didn't pay their researches well enough.

She supplemented the rest of our income by sowing dressing gowns in a factory after hours. Most of the time I was left to my own decides, if she'd have any sense my mother would've chucked your lot and gone to work at the factory full time. 

She would've earned a damn sight more. Still she believed in the work. The only thing she was never neglectful of was what she called 'my true study' I'm grateful to her of course, I just wished she'd got over your lot and your slavish devotion to your patron."

Well you make assumptions Mary, and I thought we were supposed to be 'the same side'.

"I guess you're right. I just like to seperate my portfolio a bit as it were. Often during my studies my mother would talk to me about the amazing arcane relics at the institute, I'm sure you can imagine my dissapointed when I got a look at the collection of mediocrity in artifact storage.

But long before that, the idea of dark and tearful items of power had taken root in my young mind. I used to spend afternoons hunting through antique and junk shops. There were plenty to choose from back then. Hunting for that thing that would call to me in a dark secret voice. 

I never found it of course, not back then. However, when I saw Doctor Margaret Tennisen moving in across the street I knew immediately there was something different about her. She was tall and thin with long dark hair pulled into a severe bun. She wore a blue dress and carried a leather brief case that seemed like it was about to explode but she carried it with ease. 

I don't know what exactly it was about her that stuck out to me but as soon as I saw her I recognised my mother's teachings. She was touched by powers like those that watched over our family. She had a small GP practice on Nelson Street, not far from the Royal London Hospital. Back then, Whitechapel was a heavily Jewish neighborhood, and there weren’t many Gentile doctors around, so it didn’t take Dr. Tellison long to build up a healthy client list.

I started to watch her. Whenever my mother was at work, I would sit myself on the steps opposite her practice, and watch the steady stream of patients.

Over the weeks, I started to notice something. The first time an ambulance was called to take one of her patients to the hospital, I didn’t think much of it. But when another one came the day afterwards, and another three days later, it started to occur to me that there was something more within those walls than I knew. I decided that I had to see for myself.

It had not gone unnoticed to me that many of Dr. Tellison’s clients did not bother to knock on her front door, simply entering with a soft call to announce themselves. Leaving the front door of her practice unlocked was no doubt good for her clients, but also provided me with easy access, when I finally overcame my trepidation.

I had paid great attention to how loud the door was, and timed my entry to the passing of a butcher’s truck, the roar of the engine covering the sound of the door. And then, just like that, I was inside. I cursed myself for not having spent more time trying to get a sense of the interior of the building, as I had not expected the waiting room to be so sparse. There were three uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs, several bookshelves filled with worn-looking paperbacks, and a dim bulb in a wire cage. There was only a single door leading further into the building, with a peeling coat of plain white paint. My plan had been to find somewhere to hide, but it didn’t look like there was anywhere actually to do so.

I remember I was stood there, still wondering what to do, when I heard heavy footsteps approaching from behind the door. I froze, looking around desperately for anywhere to hide myself, as the steps grew closer. I had just made the decision to flee the way I had come when the door opened. A short man with a bristling moustache walked out clutching a slip of paper that looked to be a prescription. He nodded to me curtly as he walked past, and left through the front door without saying a word.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and looked down the corridor he had come from. It was darker than I expected. The light bulb had either blown or been turned off, and there didn’t seem to be any windows to let in the faint glow of daylight. There was a staircase on one side, opposite a door labeled with Dr. Tellison’s name, which I assumed to be her office.

As I approached, I noticed a sizable crack in the wood below the staircase, and looking closer, saw a small door to an under-stairs storage area. Opening it as quietly as I could, I saw it was empty, and judging by the dust, didn’t look like it was ever used. I crawled inside and closed the door behind me, delighted to find my suspicions had been correct. Through the crack in the wood, I had a clear view of the doctor’s door, and, I hoped, what was behind it.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out. A few minutes after I’d settled in my hiding place, I saw the office door open and Dr. Tellison stepped out. She walked briskly into the waiting room, and, after a few seconds of muffled conversation, led an elderly man back into her office. She entered first, leaving her patient to close the door behind him. He did not, and I was treated to a good view of her workplace. It was tiled, clean and shining, with a large brown leather examination table, upon which the old man perched as she hovered around him, poking, measuring, and asking questions I couldn’t quite hear.

There was a small, sparse desk in one corner, a cabinet affixed to the wall that I assumed contained her medicines and equipment, and on the floor I could see a squat iron safe. I immediately knew that whatever fearful secrets drew me towards this doctor, they would be bound within that safe.

I saw nothing of importance that day, or the day after that, when I snuck back into the same space. I haunted the cramped shadows beneath that staircase for almost a week before it happened.

I was always careful to be home when my mother would be there, but that wasn’t difficult, and Dr. Tellison never seemed to lock the door to her practice. I remember it was Sunday, and the summer had made my hiding place almost intolerably hot. It must have been almost as warm in the office, as the doctor took to leaving the door open almost all day, allowing whatever draught might come to blow through the building. I saw her inspect and treat almost a dozen strangers over the course of the morning, but still there was no hint of anything untoward.

But shortly before she was due to close for the day, a short, matronly woman arrived. She had curly brown hair, seemed to be in perfect health, and smiled like a fool as she made her way into Dr. Tellison’s office. The doctor greeted her pleasantly enough, but as the check-up began I caught the quickest glimpse of something cruel in her eyes. A certain predatory look.

About ten minutes into the appointment, Dr. Tellison walked over to a cabinet and retrieved a small syringe. She talked amiably to her patient as she sterilized the vein and pushed the needle inside. She kept chatting away as the plunger went down. She even kept talking in that loud, friendly manner as the woman with the curly brown hair began to convulse violently.

Once. Twice. And then she was dead.

As I watched this, my heart was racing. I could lie and say that what I saw made me afraid, but I think we both know the thrill of watching that murder inspired a very different feeling within me. A dark, vicious thing that to this day I can’t fully name. But it was beautiful, and strange.

Though what happened next was even stranger. Dr. Tellison lifted the still warm-body of her patient fully onto the table, before cutting through the fabric of the dress with a pair of shears, exposing an expanse of skin on the woman’s back.

Then she opened the safe. 24-18-3-50, and then the key. I only had to watch her do it once. Inside, I saw two books, one small and bound in leather, the other large and misshapen.

As she retrieved the larger of the two, she brushed away what looked like to be a small pile of animal bones, and picked up a wickedly sharp-looking fountain pen. She leaned over the still form on the table and began to write, not in the book, but on the flesh of the woman she had killed. I could see even from my hiding place her handwriting was cramped and messy, leaving some of the blue ink flowing off her subject like blood.

After almost twenty minutes of hurried writing, she stepped back, apparently waiting for the ink to dry. She then retrieved a clean scalpel from her cabinet, and, with a care she had not given the writing, she began to cut through the dead woman’s back, peeling away the skin upon which she had written and leaving behind a small patch of flayed flesh. She hung it, still dripping, upon a hook that I hadn’t noticed on the wall, then stepped over to the phone, and made a call.

The ambulance arrived so quickly I wondered if they’d been waiting for her. Three men in the uniform of the London Ambulance Service entered. They wore sullen, bitter expressions, and exchanged no words with Dr. Tellison as they wrapped the woman in a body bag and took her outside.

The doctor handed the oldest of them an envelope that I can only assume contained a large amount of money, and they left. I’m quite certain they never even went near the hospital.

It was now dark outside, and I knew my mother would be worried, but I could not leave unnoticed. Nor did I want to, while there was still a chance to watch more of this strange ritual.

As the skin dried upon its hook, the doctor opened the large book, and I saw its thick pages were roughly stitched to the spine with coarse thread. As she turned those pages, they plopped with an unmistakable softness.

She stopped at one page, seemingly at random, near the end of the book, and began to read aloud, her thin finger tracing the lines of text I could not see.

As she spoke, I felt the air grow thick and heavy, a scent like wet dirt rolling through the building and settling in my chest. I don’t know exactly when he appeared. In fact, even now, I’m still not able to pinpoint the moment they arrive - like falling asleep, it has simply happened already.

The old man who now stood before Dr. Tellison was familiar to me, even though I didn’t know his name. One of her patients, I remembered, who’d been taken away in an ambulance some three weeks before. There he stood, hunched and cowering. He spoke in a cracked voice, begging her to release him, demanding to know what was happening. In return, she was questioning him about his will, about his bank details, or where he had hidden money.

I couldn’t believe it - a power like this, and she was using it to try and make money. It sickened me. It still does.

I knew then that she didn’t deserve the book.

After she dismissed the old man, she collapsed into her desk chair, exhausted, and fell asleep.

I took my father’s straight razor from my pocket. It was my most prized possession, and all I had left of him after he used it to cut his own throat. The only sensible decision he ever made.

I crawled from my hiding place so slowly, so quietly, she barely even stirred as the blade glided through her windpipe. I’d never killed anyone before. I didn’t particularly enjoy it. My inclinations, predictably, were more toward watching than doing the deed myself.

Still, there was some satisfaction in the end. I did try to bind her, but it didn’t go quite right, and her page was a dreadful mess. I can’t imagine she enjoys it there at all. It took a lot more practice to get it right - not to mention learning Sanskrit - but I got there, in the end.

After a lifetime, I know all its secrets, save one. And I have a pretty good idea about how to find that."

That does explain why you broke with the institute. Who does the book come from?

"The End of course. I could never truly serve it, I just don't find death that interesting. I've always found a singular devotion far too restrictive, just ask Eric, or what's left of him."

What about the other book? The smaller one?

"Just a bit of viscera. Poems about dying animals in sanskrits, I don't think it even had a real title. Pointless really. I eventually sold it to Leitner though it came back to me after the attack."

I should really tell Fundy about this. 

"By all means. He's not exactly big on action though is he? He will just be happy I gave a statement."

Do you have any proof of this? Your magic book?

"Yes. You can keep this page, I made sure it was in English."

I- uh- who is it?

"A surprise dear. Just make sure you're alone when you read it. Goodbye Grian, wish me luck."

-Door closes-

Well, I don't really know what to add to that. If what he says is true I should think carefully before reading it. Maybe even burn it. I do rather hate the smell of burning skin though. 

Anyways, that's a decision for another day. 

-Floorboard creak-

Could rather do with a cup of tea I think.

-Recording Ends-

-Recording Begins-

There's a lot here, in many ways the context this gives Mary Keay with death is the least interesting part of it. I knew that her family was connected to Jonah Magnus somehow but I had no idea Grian was involved, even if they didn't like each other. 

Fundy may not have killed him but there's a lot he's not telling me. The Magnus Institute is not what it appears to be and until I know what it is or what it's for I'm not letting Elias know what I'm aware of.

Besides all else, I'm strangely excited. Because what sticks out to me is the very distinctive floorboard at the end. One that hasn't changed in the 8 years since this statement was given. 

There's never been any reason to look closely at a random section of floor. But it has Grians hidden compartment beneath it. No strange skin page but there is a laptop and a key. I wonder what it opens.

End supplement.

**Author's Note:**

> As I said before I will rewrite statements to do with the plot and won't be including all statements as it would be way too time consuming and I'm a GCSE student who's returning to school for his final year. Please be patient until I start rewriting them. Hopefully you enjoyed either way and simply enjoyed the story. If you did enjoy it for the actual statement please listen to the podcast, it deserves a lot of recognition.


End file.
